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Japan-based clothing brand Uniqlo has signed a cooperation agreement with Niko Luoma and will release an entire outdoor clothing collection based on his abstract photographic art.

The first outfits of the collection are already available, and the selection will soon expand to other outdoor clothing and textiles. The collection will be distributed in the Uniqlo store online as well as in about 2 000 stores in 19 countries.

“This news is a big deal. Uniqlo might not be an exclusive design brand, but it is very much about a mass market with international flavored, art-based design clothing. Niko’s art is going to get very broad visibility via this deal”, rejoices the Head of Department of Media Philip Dean from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

Uniqlo has earlier licensed works by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

Luoma (born 1970) works as a lecturer at the Aalto University Photographic Unit. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the New England School of Photography in Boston. After graduating as Master of Art from Aalto University in 2003 he taught here as a visiting lecturer from 2003 to 2013 before becoming a full-time lecturer of photography in 2015.

Luoma is currently having a private exhibition at the prestigious Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York. His art has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world since 1995. His most recent solo exhibitions of abstract photographic works were exhibited in Berlin, London and Helsinki. His monograph And time is no longer an obstacle was published 2012 (Hatje Cantz). Luoma has been an integral part of The Helsinki School photographers since 2000.

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