Ville Lahtinen Santatie 2
Welcome to our first installment of one of Travel Squire’s new columns – The Ultimate Takeaway. Each month, we will find the best takeaway from a different destination. Whether it’s a bottle of hot sauce you can only find in Mexico, the perfect vintage purse from Paris, or where to get your macadamia nuts in Hawaii, the Squire will share it here.
Our first ultimate souvenir is from Finland. “It was never meant to be a business,” Ville Lahtinen says of his popular custom hat line, Outo Wear (for those not fluent in Finnish, outo means art). For Ville, the story starts when he was just 14 years old. After learning how to crochet from his mother, he started crocheting himself a different hat for each day of the week. After many requests from his friends at school, Ville decided to start selling his hats, selling over 100 hats his first autumn in business. But even the word “hat” is misleading — these are custom creations for each individual who places an order.
While Ville and his hand-crocheted hats were gaining in popularity, he still needed his big break. Ville entered a magazine competition calling for people to design their own hat. Ville’s design won, and as a prize the magazine did an entire story on him and his hat. That was when Outo Wear got its first big break – and now they are on their way to world domination.
Ville now has over 15 different styles of hats and clothing pieces – and has sold over 8,000 individually designed hats. But despite his growing business, Ville still does all of the crocheting by hand himself so he doesn’t compromise the quality of his hats. Outo Wear ships their pieces all over the world for those who don’t want to wait until their next trip to Finland! Email Ville at sales@outowear.com to place your order now, but be sure to check out his many hat styles at www.outowear.com. In New York, you can find Ville’s hats at Auto (803-805 Washington Street).
E-mail: info@outowear.com