Apprentice profile

I live in Helsinki. I work for the city, in a project that helps long-term unemployed people on a path to the open labour market. I work as the head of a sewing department overseeing about 40 people. People work there for periods of rehabilitating work experience or are employed for six months. I have worked there for six years and am still I happy to go there every day. It is a dream job. It combines my professional skills as a costumier with teaching, motivating, and helping people. I collect glittery pink pens. I am compiling studies of fashion design. I’m building a large doll’s house – set in 1893 London. I’m reading all I can find about that time – and that is at least as much fun as making the actual miniatures. I love skating. The greatest feeling is when every movement—from the tip of the toe to the tip of the little finger and even the blink of an eye—are all in total union with music. That can happen when the skate glides on the ice without making a sound – and speed is disguised in the softness of the movement.