Photographer: Jonas Lundqvist Stylist: Teri Niitti

Olivia Magazine

Photographer: Jonas Lundqvist Stylist: Teri Niitti

Olivia Magazine

 Exclusively Fashion Magazine: How did your career start as a fashion stylist?

Teri Niitti: Funnily enough it was a total accident. It happened something like 10 years ago. A friend of mine a stylist was overbooked and she asked me to fill in for her kind of pretending that I had done it for a while. Well I was a designer at the time and had styled my own collections photo-shoots and fashion shows so it was not totally untrue.

EFM: Have you always had a passion for fashion?

TN: Yes that's the case. I drew fashion illustrations already before I went to school.

EFM: Do you think being a fashion stylist is self taught; or do you have to have an “eye” for fashion?

TN: I think a school can give you tools and information needed for the profession but the inner drive and vision you really have to have ready in you. Nobody can teach or give you that!

EFM: Where do you get your inspiration?

TN: The usual: traveling, movies, music, blogs, watching people, art and history.

Photographer: Åsa Tällgard Stylist: Teri Niitti

South Africa ELLE Magazine

Photographer: Åsa Tällgard Stylist: Teri Niitti

South Africa ELLE Magazine

EFM: What is your typical day like?

TN: I am a morning person so I wake up early and go for a session in the gym or a run if the weather is good. Mostly I'll be in a studio or location by 9am and will be working there till 6 or 7pm. Then really it's the time to prepare for the next day. Getting last minute stuff, seeing what my assistant or pr-agencies have provided me and going on from there. I'll try to get home by 10-11pm and be in bed by midnight... If I am not in a studio it's mostly meetings with magazines, advertising agencies, pr-companies and just getting the next thing done. It seems like a hectic consuming lifestyle but I love it. It looks like I only eat in restaurants or cafe's nowadays. I love my job and if I am travelling for photo-shoots spend most of my time with the photographer or make-up artists anyway.

EFM: Can you share what other editorials you have worked on?

TN: I have worked for Elle, Cosmopolitan, Leonce in Germany to name a few.

EFM: How do you prepare for a photo-shoot?

TN: I usually have a meeting with a magazine and the photographer about the fashion theme and the style of photography. Then I come up with a song to embody that and start repeating it to get me more free and inspired. Physically it's just seeing a lot of garments and accessories and making the right choices.

EFM: Every stylist knows that you have to be overly prepared when on location; what is in your “kit” right now?

TN: I have little Miu Miu Bumbag that all the model like LOL filled with this and that, safety-pins, socks, tape, superglue, sewing kit, nipple tape, shoeshine, elastics, headache pills etc.... not gonna tell it all.

EFM: What is your favorite accessory?

TN: MMM. at the moment a gladiator style leg protectors from Danish Designer Malene Birger

EFM: What are the latest fashion trends right now in Finland?

TN: Well its a full summer here so showing a lot of skin! Loose garments and low gladiator sandal and bright colours are very visible in the streets. So nothing new here (smiles).

EFM: Your career takes you around the world; can you tell us some of the fashion trends that you are seeing?

TN: Well well well... I wonder if I should tell these? 

EFM: How do you keep yourself up beat while working long hours?

TN: Exercise really helps me here and good friends. Eating well and sleeping enough if I can!

EFM: What is your advice for an aspiring fashion stylist?

TN: Find a stylist you admire and contact him/her and ask if he/she needs a stylist.

EFM: Where do you see yourself in this fashion industry in the next five years?

TN:  Working as a very successful stylist on a more international level.

  www.teriniitti.com