By 2003, the idea of making our own underwear was starting to take shape. The next two decisions were obvious: what should the underwear look like, and what on earth should we call it?
Brown and yellow was an easy choice for our very first design. To us, it perfectly matched our definition of disturbed, but stylish. The colours also reminded us of the uniforms worn by many of the sports teams we grew up watching, so there was something nicely nostalgic about them too.
Finding the name turned out to be a little more difficult.
In the early 2000s, Finland was becoming more international by the day. The Finnish Road Administration Tielaitos became Destia and the local tele company Helsingin Puhelinyhdistys became Elisa—both places where we had worked summer jobs. At the same time, we were taking a compulsory marketing course at university, where we were taught that every successful brand needed an international name. Television was full of programmes travelling the world in search of the most extraordinary and exotic experiences.
It all sounded perfectly reasonable.
So we decided to do the opposite.
We figured there must be plenty of people around the world who found Finland, our language and even our alphabet exotic. Besides, we always thought names like Tielaitos and Helsingin Puhelinyhdistys had a lot more character than Destia or Elisa.
For our underwear brand, we wanted a name that included both Ä and Ö, so its Finnish roots would always be visible.
Mähöne was a name that had been around our group of friends for years. It genuinely felt like part of who we were. The more we said it out loud, the more we liked it.
The name also made the whole project a little more challenging. Back then, Mähöne raised a few eyebrows in Finland. To us, it was both a reference to Mahoney from Police Academy and to that one friend who always stands out—sometimes for slightly questionable reasons.
That's exactly why we liked it.
To Finnish ears, Mähöne sounded a bit rough around the edges.
To everyone else, it sounded exotic.
Looking back, the name has caused us a few headaches too. It certainly wasn't the easiest choice. It probably put some potential customers off, and maybe it still does.
On the other hand, if we had only made logical and safe decisions, the whole idea would probably have stayed just an idea.
The fact that success seemed unlikely—and that the whole project felt slightly ridiculous—was probably what made it so interesting in the first place.
Today, Mähöne means something a little different to us.
Over the years it has become a reminder of the confidence we had in our early twenties and the determination with which we decided to turn a crazy idea into reality.
More than twenty years later, we still believe Mähöne was exactly the right name.
And best of all, it feels like many of you have made it your own as well.
