The Fifth Year of TAUKO
Hanna, Mila and Kaisa in Helsinki, a rare moment of three of us in a same place. Stefanie is missing from the picture, but very much part of the team we’re celebrating.
The cover of the Happiness issue was among the best three covers of 2025.
Our fifth year started with Happiness, an issue we will always remember.
For the photoshoot, we had the extraordinary opportunity to photograph the collection at the Finnish National Gallery. There was something quite magical about bringing handmade clothes into those rooms and placing contemporary sewing alongside works that have become part of our shared visual history. It felt like a fitting beginning to a year that would become very much about what making means to us , and why we want to keep doing it.
In November, we travelled to Tampere for the Finnish Craft Fair. These big events are always intense, but what stays with us afterwards are the encounters: meeting so many people from the Finnish sewing community, seeing familiar faces and finally meeting in person people we had previously known only through their makes, messages or Instagram accounts.
#pocketop is became one of the most loved designs of this issue
And then came Pockets.
We made many new friends while working on this issue, and we think you did too.
One of the things we love most about TAUKO is being able to introduce designers whose work deserves to travel further. Some have been designing and teaching for years and are well known within one part of the sewing world, yet completely new to another.
Bringing these different communities together through one magazine continues to be one of the most exciting parts of what we do.
Pockets was launched in January 2026, with an entire issue dedicated to that small but essential part of our clothes. From clever constructions to the zero-waste POCKETOP, it reminded us that even something as familiar as a pocket can still surprise us.
The issue also travelled with us to Berlin, where we joined forces with 1000STOFF for community meetings around Pockets. We sewed, talked and finished the day around a table with a lovely dinner. Moments like this have become increasingly important to us. TAUKO exists on paper and on screens, but it really comes alive when people gather around making.
By March, our calendar was filled with fairs, meetings and events. We returned to h+h Cologne for the second time, meeting designers, shops, makers and other people working within the international craft community.
Through all these encounters, something we had been thinking about for a long time became increasingly clear.
Making is a lifelong practice
Our Handprint campaign in spring gave us the opportunity to put into words, more strongly than ever before, what we want TAUKO to bring to the sewing community.
We want to help people learn new skills.
We want to introduce new ways of making and thinking about clothes. We want independent designers to have a place for experimentation and an international platform for their work. And we want to support a community in which knowledge is shared and making something yourself is valued.
The more people sew for themselves and for the people around them, the better the world becomes. For us, it really is that simple.
We can make, repair, alter, exchange and learn from one another. We can understand how our clothes are constructed and how much work goes into them. And perhaps, little by little, we can become less dependent on a system of endless mass production.
Throughout spring and summer, we have also been working on a secret project — and quite a big one. We can't tell you much about it yet, even though we would very much like to. In a few months, we finally will.
#taukoinari and #taukosaga are designed by Essi Kontio, a active and inspiring member of the Finnish sewing community
A Nordic summer
Before that, summer arrived.
Our summer issue was something we had been excited about for a long time. With Nordic Summer, we had the chance to invite some of our favourite Nordic designers into a single issue, bringing together established names and new discoveries and celebrating the particular magic of summer in this part of the world.
Long evenings, light that seems to go on forever, clothes that can be simple and generous, and the brief feeling that there is suddenly time for everything. It was a celebration of where TAUKO comes from, while still doing what the magazine has always done: bringing different designers, places and approaches to making together.
A new look for TAUKO
And now we have TAUKO No.20, Layers, in our hands.
Twenty issues.
For this milestone, we wanted to look not only at what goes into TAUKO, but also at how the magazine itself could become better to make from.
Issue No.20 introduced a renewed layout for TAUKO. Throughout its pages, scanned pieces of fabric, sewing threads and scraps from our own making process have become part of the visual language of the magazine. We wanted the pages to feel tactile and connected to the sewing table — to the materials, experiments and little remnants that surround us while we work.
At the same time, we completely revisited the sewing instructions.
They are now clearer and easier to navigate, with a new instruction system, more space for the steps that need it, improved line drawings and key moments highlighted along the way. Measurements in centimetres and inches are easier to follow, and our new Challenge level helps you understand what kind of making experience each pattern offers before you begin.
This renewal came from the same question that has shaped so much of our fifth year: how can TAUKO help you learn?
We don't want instructions simply to get you from Step 1 to a finished garment. We want them to help you understand what you are doing along the way. To make unfamiliar techniques approachable, while giving more experienced makers opportunities to deepen and perfect their skills.
And arriving at our twentieth issue with a renewed magazine feels both like a milestone and a beginning.
Five years, and what comes next
This September, we are celebrating the fifth year of TAUKO Magazine.
Looking back at the past year, what we remember most isn't only the four magazines we made. It is the people we met through them. The designers we discovered, the conversations, the things we learned while making the issues, and the things we saw you learning and making from them.
That is what we would like to carry into our next five years.
More skills. More curiosity. More independent designers. More opportunities to learn from one another. More reasons to make the things we need rather than simply buying them.
And, hopefully, many more unexpected discoveries along the way.
For our birthday, we have brought the four issues of our fifth year together in the limited Fifth Year of TAUKO Magazine Bundle: Happiness, Pockets, Nordic Summer and Layers. Happiness and Pockets are already sold out, but we saved 40 copies of each especially for this occasion. The bundle also includes a TAUKO sewing label originally created for our subscribers and saved in a small quantity for our fifth birthday.
Discover the Fifth Year of TAUKO Magazine Bundle >
And we are celebrating throughout September. There are gifts for our newsletter community, a special digital subscription offer, pieces from our photoshoots looking for new homes in our From the Pages drops, and an opportunity to meet us in person at Bawn in Glasgow.
SEPTEMBER AT TAUKO
01 SEP — DELOCALIZED, our birthday gift to our newsletter community: sign up!
05 SEP — Fifth Year of TAUKO Magazine Bundle: shop now
11 SEP — TAUKO Digital birthday offer: 20% off from the digital subscription
17 SEP — From the Pages: Drop 01
18 SEP — TAUKO at Bawn, Glasgow
24 SEP — From the Pages: Drop 02
29 SEP — From the Pages: Final Drop
Thank you to everyone who has sewn a TAUKO pattern, subscribed to the magazine, visited us at an event, designed for us, stocked TAUKO in their shop, sent us a message, shared something they learned or simply followed along.
Five years in, we are more certain than ever about one thing:
Making is a lifelong practice. There is still so much to learn.
Hanna, Mila, Kaisa and Stefanie
