Featured in Helsingin Sanomat – The Fight for Authenticity
From the beginning, Kasperi was born from a passion for making things that last. Good design is design that can be passed down generations.
Genuine craftsmanship deserves to be seen, appreciated, and elevated. Yet the landscape has been filling with opportunists, using modern digital tools and global supply chains to trick consumers into buying something that claims to be authentic but is indeed mass-produced with cheap labour.
The phenomenon of AI-generated sites selling products that claim one thing and are another is spreading like wildfire right now. It got to the extent where these sites started targeting our customers, and we started getting comments from our old customers warning us of this. Some cusotmers have even been mislead to mix us up with the fake sites. By now, it is an international phenomenon, and it's no longer restricted to marketplace-type sites, entire brands are being built with misleading premises.
That’s why the largest newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat and journalist Katri Kallionpää recently published an article about the phenomenon and how not only misled consumers but also authentic brands like ours are affected. We felt proud and grateful for the visibility. But at the same time that it took something like this to get a story into print.
If you read the article (paywalled), and found it meaningful, we’d be incredibly grateful if you could share it forward. The piece clarifies many misunderstandings, and your help helps keep real, high‑quality Finnish craft in the spotlight a little longer. ❤️
Genuine Craftsmanship Deserves To Be Seen
This winter and spring, we noticed an unfortunate trend: websites marketing imports as “Finnish handmade.” Many of these AI‑generated pages promote imitation products through the same platforms we use and targeting the same audiences we do. This causes confusion.
When Helsingin Sanomat came out with an investigation on a suspicious online store posing as handcrafted in Finland recently, we reached out. They had found out that the roots of that particular company led to the Netherlands, and they were dropshipping low-quality goods, marketing them as genuine Finnish craft. Consumers were getting misled, and as a side-effect consumer trust went down for us who are in this craft with our hearts.
Helsingin Sanomat decided to come see what genuine craftsmanship looks like, and the article follows the HS team as they visit our workshop at Perttulan kartano, meet our team of motivated craftspeople, and witness firsthand how Kasperi backpacks and bags are carefully crafted in Hämeenlinna.
Misleading marketing and vague storytelling can harm trust in craftsmanship. We need visibility for real brands to bring legitimacy and awareness of what it takes to make something like this. Michael Tervanen, one of our partners, explaines that truth matters: “We do this work honestly and wholeheartedly.” Thanks to HS and Katri Kallionpää for coming out to Hämeenlinna to meet us and document the truth.
How You Can Help Real Craftsmanship
- Read the Helsingin Sanomat story to understand the real journey behind Kasperi.
- If you have encountered similar phenomena, we’d be glad to hear your experiences.
- Share the link with friends or on social media, every share helps:
