On an autumn afternoon, the Iittala glass factory hums with a rhythm that has remained largely unchanged for more than 140 years. The air is heavy with heat from the furnace, which roars at 1,450C as glassblowers – masters of a craft that can’t be learnt at school – pull glowing masses of molten glass from the fire. They blow and shape the material in a way that feels both age-old and modern. “I spend every other week here,” says Janni Vepsäläinen, Iittala’s creative director. “This is the most inspiring place. It’s where the magic happens.”

Vepsäläinen, who took the helm in spring 2023, comes not from the homeware sector but from fashion – knitwear, to be precise. But the pull of Iittala’s heritage, its craft and its factory proved irresistible. “When I was approached about this role I couldn’t say no,” she tells Monocle. “Being Finnish, I grew up with Iittala. It felt like I was joining a family.”

Her background shapes her creative vision. She describes having an “epiphany” as a student when she discovered that she could make her own fabrics: selecting yarns, colours and techniques to create something from scratch. Visiting Iittala’s factory during her interviews for the creative-director role, she felt the same spark. “I was again in front of a material being shaped and formed right there and then,” she says. “I had never done glassware design but I realised that the process was the same. Both knitwear and glassblowing are about craftsmanship and century-old techniques that can be used to create something modern.”

Her conviction that disciplines can inform and enrich one another underpins her philosophy at Iittala. “Creativity should know no boundaries,” she says. “The best projects are always born from conversations between creative fields. When you’re new to something, you ask different questions. You see the possible in the impossible.”

One of Vepsäläinen’s recent projects was a collaboration with London-based musician Damsel Elysium, in which glassblowers crafted glass instruments that were used to compose new pieces. “It was about stretching the material, pushing the boundaries of what glass can do, then bringing in a completely different form of expression – music. That’s the kind of project that excites me.”

She has also introduced a fashion-inspired rhythm to the brand by instituting two seasonal drops every year – concept-driven collections that tell stories beyond individual products. “That’s completely new to Iittala,” she says. “It’s about creating coherence, not just through products but through campaigns and the whole expression of the brand.” The forthcoming autumn collection, for example, includes the company’s first scented candles that draw directly from glassmaking’s essence. The scents are named Sand, Fire and Water – all integral to the process.

Next year, Iittala will celebrate the 90th anniversary of Alvar Aalto’s Savoy vase with a series of collaborations reimagining the avant-garde spirit of the 1930s original. “When it was first presented, journalists hated it so much that they threw it out of taxi windows,” she says. “Now it’s our crown jewel. That story tells you that Iittala has always been about pushing boundaries.”

For Vepsäläinen, keeping the brand relevant is as much about the future as it is heritage. “We can’t just be a museum,” she says. “We love our history, but we have to use it as inspiration to guide us into the future.”

She says that Iittala’s DNA consists of three elements: Finnish identity, craftsmanship and exploring creative frontiers. Vepsäläinen sees untapped potential in allowing disciplines such as fashion and homeware to collide. “There is always something to learn from different parts of culture,” she says. “The best artists are the people who are brave enough to ask those questions.” She points to global design fairs, which she notes are increasingly less about single industries than about cultural conversations that bring together designers, musicians, artists and thinkers.

Asked what she hopes her time at Iittala will be remembered for, Vepsäläinen says, “I would like people to think of our curiosity, the conversations that we started and the opportunities that we gave different creatives to explore glass and design.” Her leap from knitwear is proof of what can be achieved when creative boundaries are crossed.