Longing For Sleep Exhibition

Exhibition and window design for Marit Ilison’s personal exhibition, Longing For Sleep.

Opened in September 2014

Borrowing its name from the Estonian title for Chekhov’s novel “Let Me Sleep,” the conceptual collection “Longing for Sleep” is about the haunting wish to sleep during dark wintery times, kaamos. Kaamos is an untranslatable word only known in Estonian and Finnish languages, referring to the period in the Northern Hemisphere when the days are very short, and it barely gets light outside. To materialize the feeling of a wish to stay in bed wrapped in a blanket all day long, Marit Ilison has created a collection using vintage Soviet wool blankets. Some of them

All of the pieces are handmade in our atelier in Tallinn, working together with highly skilled artisans. All the silk details are separately hand-dyed according to the colour of each blanket, and all the seams hand-treated. It takes about a week to prepare a coat. Each coat is then labeled with a certificate stating the origin, sequence number, and the names of the people who have been personally involved in the making of the piece. All this special dedication makes the coats true wearable novelty pieces.

Reflecting Marit Ilison’s trademark of translating feelings into beautiful physical matter, there is a reason why the embellishment is discretely hidden inside the coats. Though she’d like to stay wrapped in a blanket for a whole day during deep winter, she hears a pricking conscience whispering in her ear that she should be working instead. This little voice is like sand on her side or a pea under the mattress, which won’t let her fall into slumber. Therefore, she has translated this feeling into the rich embellishments inside of the coats, which also reflect an idea of a secret dream world inside the coat, shimmering with beautiful dreams. We use the best crystals and create unique embellishments for each piece.