Estonia’s quiet luxury: How Lilli Jahilo is rewriting fashion’s rules from Tallinn
From bespoke tailoring to digital expansion, the Estonian fashion house resists industry orthodoxies—choosing authenticity, sustainability, and direct-to-consumer relationships over scale.
Estonian designer Lilli Jahilo has built a global luxury brand from Tallinn by rejecting mass production, embracing made-to-order fashion, and connecting directly with clients in markets like Sweden and the US. My interview explores how her label balances authenticity, digital innovation, and international growth.
Roots in an unlikely place
Tallinn is not Paris, nor Milan, nor even Copenhagen. Estonia’s capital sits on the Baltic, more often associated with medieval stone towers and digital governance than with couture. Yet from a studio there, Lilli Jahilo has built one of the most distinctive independent fashion houses in Northern Europe.
She did not start with a master plan. After winning the ERKI Young Designer of the Year Award with her graduate collection, Jahilo found herself taking private orders out of her living room. The department store Stockmann sold her first collection but insisted on a company invoice. She had no company. So she founded one. “It was very practical,” she recalls. “They wanted to pay me. I needed to send an invoice.”
That pragmatic beginning belies what has become a deliberate rejection of the fashion industry’s most entrenched orthodoxies. Jahilo and her cousin, co-owner Tene Talviste, have spent the last 15 years constructing a brand that insists on authenticity: everything produced in Estonia, no seasonal churn, no wholesalers dictating terms, and a refusal to dilute quality for scale.
Lilli Jahilo and Tene Talviste (& Lilli’s mother Marika Jahilo - co-founder of the company, now has an advisory role. This fall, Tene’s sister Tuuli Talviste joined the company as a Showroom Manager - so it’s a family company. We (Maison Lilli Jahilo ) were amongst the top 5 Family Enterprises of 2024
Standing outside the capitals
Operating from Estonia, a country rarely associated with fashion, might seem a handicap. For Jahilo, it has been liberation. “Being away from Paris or Milan means I don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” she says. “I can simply design the clothes I believe in.”
Consultants once advised her to “buy” a Paris address, a common marketing trick among brands seeking credibility. She refused. “Why pretend? For us, authenticity is everything.” That decision has become part of the story clients buy into. Estonia may not be known for couture, but it has a long heritage of craftsmanship, nurtured by the Tallinn Fashion House in the Soviet era and sustained by a loyal local clientele willing to pay for quality.
Cutting against the luxury tide
The global luxury market is shifting. Conglomerates such as LVMH have prospered by acquiring brands and pumping millions into marketing, wholesale distribution, and seasonal collections. Yet demand patterns are changing. Younger consumers are less obsessed with the latest handbag or accessory, more cautious about disposable purchases, and more alert to sustainability.
Jahilo’s independence gives her an edge. She can promise scarcity, bespoke fit, and a human connection. Clients, she says, appreciate knowing the designer herself is alive, present, and still sketching the dresses they wear. “Paradoxically, our small size is our strength and we’re agile and can quickly adapt to market needs.”
Building without investors
In an industry fuelled by venture capital money, the house remains self-funded. Offers have come, but the duo worry about misaligned incentives. Investors want returns; designers want freedom. “If we have to compromise our values,” says Jahilo, “then we won’t do it at all.”
That philosophy has meant slow growth, but also resilience. Through the financial crisis of 2008, through the pandemic, and through rising energy and labour costs, the company has kept revenues climbing. It has no outside shareholders to placate. The only stakeholders are the family owners, and Lilli the designer.
Digital pivots and personal touch
Technology has shaped the brand’s reach. In 2016, after a trip to Beijing where customers asked how to buy online, Jahilo built an e-commerce website. By the time the pandemic shut physical stores, she was ahead of peers.
But she resists the standard playbook of transactional online fashion. Instead, her site blends commerce with narrative. Dresses are expensive €1,000 and up and clients expect confidence before buying. So the house offers online consultations and, crucially, a made-to-measure service. Customers enter their measurements online; and the atelier adjusts the pattern accordingly. All of our patterns are digitalised, albeit initially handmade, meaning we can adjust them according to measurements effectively as result returns are rare.
Unlike most brands, Jahilo refuses chatbots and AI recommendation engines. “If you’re buying a dress of this value, you deserve a human conversation.” It is a reminder that technology should serve craft, not replace it.”
Princess Sophia of Sweden
Beyond the seasons
Another quiet rebellion is the refusal to produce seasonal collections. For most of the industry, spring/summer and autumn/winter calendars dictate everything. For Jahilo, they are unnecessary. Clients live in different climates, travel across hemispheres, and want access to coats in July or summer dresses in December. Online distribution makes seasonality irrelevant.
Marketing two collections a year is also a huge workload for an independent label and clients often need more time to get used to the collections, so the peak sales of a new collection can come two years after launch. Since covid we produce only one trans-seasonal collection a year.
By keeping collections in production for years, the house reduces waste, builds brand continuity, and avoids the dead stock that has bankrupted many boutiques. It also aligns with sustainability: only produce what is ordered.
Expansion, carefully measured
Sweden remains the most important export market. It sets the tone for Norway and Finland, whose consumers look to Stockholm. The United States is also a priority, with Jahilo planning meetings in New York. But expansion is not a rush. “We only wholesale with select resellers such as Moda Operandi. But the main growth has to come directly from us. It’s the only way to sustain the business.” says Talviste.
Key partnerships with select retailers return such as Moda Operandi in the US who also are used as marketing vehicles. The brand refuses to scale at the cost of losing control.
Pictured: Swedish entrepreneur Isabella Löwengrip and Lilli Jahilo
Cannes Lions and the fashion–advertising crossover
The duo are regulars at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the annual festival of creativity. They belong to the informal community of “Cannes friends” who meet there every year. For a fashion designer, Cannes may seem an odd venue. But Jahilo sees parallels. Fashion, like advertising, tells stories, sells dreams, and courts attention.
Ten years ago she designed the “Cannes dress” specifically for the festival. It remains one of her bestsellers, and next year the house plans to revive it for the anniversary. That too says something: unlike disposable seasonal pieces, the Cannes dress has endured a decade.
The Cannes Dress
What lies ahead
The brand’s future will depend on balancing expansion with values. Digital will remain central perfecting virtual measurement, upgrading the site but so will the refusal to outsource the soul of the brand. “If we can’t do it our way,” says Jahilo, “we won’t do it at all.”
That stubbornness may prove prescient. As luxury polarises between mass-market giants and niche independents, brands like Lilli Jahilo’s show how a middle path authentic, sustainable, digitally connected yet personally attentive can thrive.
Estonia’s President Kersti Kaljulaid meets Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
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