Marimekko's colorful past

This year, Finnish textiles and fashion brand Marimekko is being celebrated in Japan with a traveling exhibition that is now about to open at The Bunkamura Museum of Art. This Tokyo edition of the event will be the largest of all the scheduled shows, bringing in additional works of the designer's famously whimsical patterns of flowers and childlike doodles to make a collection of more than 50 textile samples, 60 vintage dresses and numerous original sketches.

You'll learn that the brand's 60-year history is as colorful and storied as its designs. It has matured from a troubled start when the patterns were considered far too ostentatious and avant-garde for the time to being accredited with the revolutionary idea that clothes should be loose on the woman's body and not tight and tailored.