Myssy retrospective
Enjoy the journey: The 20 years Myssy
2006-2008 The Alp Years
Unlike you expected, Myssy was not born in Finland. In the early years of Myssy, “the HQ” was located in a cafe in Davos, Switzerland. A former professional windsurfer FIN-24 Janne Rauhansuu was living there and searching for a new direction in life, when he picked up knitting. For the first years Myssy was a project of the Davos freeride community: Plenty of hiking & skiing, knitting in afterski and parties took place.
Myssy was born Finnish. From the very beginning, being from Finland was cool. Myssy.fi was registered and the co-founder of the brand Julia Schneider created the first graphical identity for Myssy. All Myssys were numbered and had a story written in Janne’s knitting book.
2009-2015 The Myssy farm
After touring the world for 20 years, it was time for Janne to return home and take over the family farm. In 2009 they got engaged with Anna and the concept of Myssy farm was invented. The first Finnwool yarns were bought the year earlier and soon it was time to turn both the farm and the Myssy all organic. She had deep roots in Pöytyä and strong background in marketing, she knew exactly what to do. The first photo was taken on the same Aurajoki field that has served for 15 years as the main scene for Myssy shows and photos.
Little by little Myssy became Anna’s project as Janne concentrated on developing the farm. Her love for photography, fashion and Pöytyä took over. Kids born in 2010, 2011 and 2014 kept her busy, but Myssy was up and running. The local hardcore knitters Anneli, Rahkis, Salli, Soili and Terttu had already joined the crew and a new webshop was up and running. In 2014 Anna held the first presentation about Finnsheep wool as a world class material. The Organic turnip rape seed oil of Rauhansuu farm won the Organic Product of the Year Award in 2015, and it was either or: All in for Myssy or all in for food production?
2016-2019 The international journey starts
Being born global, it is not hard to go international. In December 2015 Jannen Maatalous ltd got an EU grant for the internationalization of Myssyfarmi and in January 2016 Myssy entered the Ethical Fashion Show at Berlin Fashion Week. The rest is history. In AW16 Myssy had seven international retailers including concept store Merci in Paris. That was when the Finnish buyers finally started to call in. Hanna joined the company as the first employee and became a partner as Myssyfarmi Ltd was spinned off the farm in January 2017. A month later little Auni was born.
Myssy joined the Lifestyle Asia export program and soon Japan and South Korea were our main markets of growth. “Be careful what you wish for, because it may come true” was the theme of ours. In 2018 Grannies flew to Nagoya as guests of Takashimaya department store starring the Christmas market. These first years of internationalization were filled with interviews in both Finnish and international press. In late 2019 the first equity round of Myssy was completed with great success. We were all set to go. 
2020-2025 Dreams come true
The pandemia locked down the world and Finns went all outdoors. These were years of fast growth for us in all markets. There was no Paris fashion week or ISPO, but we had done our homework. Our team had grown into seven motivated chics and we had great plans. Our collaboration with Partioaitta, Naturkompaniet and Globetrotter started to bloom and there seemed to be no limits for Myssy. The number of Grannies knitting for us reached 100 and the number of new spinning mills established in Finland took everyone by surprise. Myssy had become the opinion leader of the Finnish wool business.
In mid February 2022 our Ukrainian marketing manager Iryna flew to New York fashion week with her brand new Finnish passport. A lifetime dream came true. Two days later her family was hiding from the Russian rockets in a cellar in Kyiv. The world changed overnight, but luckily the family was soon safe with us in Pöytyä. Also the market changed and a year later in March 2023 Save the Myssy was launched. The power of community saved us, we managed to make a great turn around and reached the revenue of 1Meur for the first time.
Myssy was ready to take a more central role in both the fashion and knitting community of ours. The national Finnish Knitting Championships became an established event that is loved world wide. Our project Finn Fashion Friday became commonly known as The Weekend of Finnish Fashion. We were chosen to start a global campaign Explorers of sustainability of Skoda Global. And when the whole country was about to drown into small imported packages, we swam up the stream and sold our Pöytyä-made accessories to China with continuing success.
2026 New Myssy starts to bloom
This chapter is yet to be written. Together with our community everything is possible.
