Reima’s representative emphasizes that the company has left the Russian market in 2022, and the Russian Lassie chain has no connection to Reima or Finland.
Several Russian media reported today that a Finnish children’s clothing brand’s store has opened in St. Petersburg. Among other things, they wrote about it Izvestija, 78 TV channelsa St. Petersburg economic magazine Delovoi Peterburg and Komsomolskaya Pravda – evening newspaper.
The media claim that the Lassie brand is a subsidiary of Reima. The Russian-language website of the Lassie company gives the impression that there is a connection between Reima and the Russian company.
– In the 80s, the Lassie brand was bought by Finland’s best-known children’s clothing company Reima, reads Lassie’s history –on the sitewhich also tells about the creation of a brand in Kokkola.
Contact information and Russian companies on the company’s website databases according to Lassie is registered in Moscow.
Reima Communications Manager Riikamaria Paakkunainen told that the Finnish children’s clothing manufacturer has nothing to do with the news.
According to him, Reima has stopped delivering products to Russia in 2022. After that, the company has withdrawn Completely from Russia and sold its subsidiary operating in the country in 2023.
– The sentence in the article “It is a subsidiary of Reima†is not true. Of course, the Lassie brand originally came from Finland, but this current Russian Lassie chain has no connection to Reima or Finland. It is no longer “Finnish†and not owned by Reima, emphasizes Paakkunainen.
Russian brands have tried to quickly replace the Finnish brands that left Russia with new, similar products. This happened to Paulig and Valio, for example.