Stella has tried many different styles, technologies and methods as a designer but nowadays she creates products as if solving a math puzzle. She has a set of base rules for any new product she designs – optimal material usage, easy care and repair possibilities of the product, reuse options of the material, use of mono-material hardware when possible etc. In addition to that – fondness for simple aesthetics and love for all things natural.

In essence her creations are minimalistic and every detail has a functional reason. Nothing is excessive and the main role is given to the material that over time starts to tell its own story.

Stella hired her first crafters in 2013 and in 2015 a systematic work with the collection based on circular design principles began.
Evolving the studio is always on Stella's subconscious and she is willing to give a lot of herself for it to prosper. She wants the work environment to feel like a second home and the team as an extended family.

She likes changes but 2017 was one of the most challenging for her. Many important events took place simultaneously. The studio moved to a 3 times bigger space, the company hired 4 new crafters, the studio store and gallery were opened – all in one month!
In the middle of all this she also became a mother – daughter Suvi was born. As everyday life was turned into turmoil, it was logical that from the fourth day after giving birth the working table sometimes casually converted into a nappy changing table and the breastfed baby came along to the meetings.

Time has left its mark and Suvi now calls the studio The Best Workplace in the World. She is a big boss already – always changing the studio store display, carrying leather pieces from one place to another and instructing her older colleagues on leatherwork.

Stella does not see herself as an entrepreneur but as a reformer. She is a restless person by nature and needs to have some kind of development in hand at all times. She likes to create environments, invent systems and find solutions to different situations and make products and life better in general.

When she gets lost in her mind she starts to clean or dives into Excel sheets – this helps the thoughts to incubate into next steps.

Stella is committed to taking the responsibility as a designer in her speciality. Inspired by making things better she is trying to reform the industry with the help of her brand and leading the Department of Accessory Design and Bookbinding in Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA)​​.

The latter she has done from July 2020 together with a friend and a designer Kristiina Nurk from the brand Nulku. The goal is to modernize the study program so that it would better respond to the trends of the future and at the same time respect old traditions. In addition it should be in dialogue with the world without losing its own strong identity.

Including the academic side to entrepreneurship has added layers, depth and opened new perspectives – as if being back to school herself. It has meant quite a bit of juggling in daily life but the potential that lies in the University is a big motivator to fine-tune the studies and to grow also personally.

Many team members from the studio have become more independent at the same time and this has enabled them to polish processes here, too.

Stella has several homes and studio is definitely one of them. When she is not there, in the academy or in her Tallinn apartment you will probably find her in Tartu Supilinn or in Meelva summer house in the south of Estonia. Stella is originally from Tartu but for many years she was fully based in the capital.

Since 2013 she has been dividing life between two cities – using time on the train to work, read or think, or do nothing at all which is impossible in the everyday commotion. Driving back and forth has become a sort of an inspiration itself – changing the environment enables alertness and switching off the thoughts. Also small family trips are good for relaxation – intensive weeks need counterbalance of the forest silence. Primal strength of nature helps to put life in perspective and distinguish important from irrelevant.

Stella has always lived in the city but she is glad that she grew up spending summers in the countryside helping her grandmother with the farmwork. This immediate experience will probably take her to the countryside for a longer time at some point. Or she will change the summer house to a third permanent residence.

Stella wrote an essay about the future in her own leather studio when applying to Tartu Art College and the studio as it is today is the accomplishment of that dream. However the dreams have grown during this journey and now she has a goal to reform the whole leather accessories industry. She has not changed to other materials so far because she believes that much can be improved in leather usage and she feels responsible for contributing to a positive change.

One of the dreams is scaling her Round 2 system. For the time being the business model of Stella Soomlais has only been tried out with a small brand in a small country. It does not have a sufficient impact, but can if scaled. It is important to prove that the Round 2 system can be implemented for bigger practices – thinking many steps ahead, designing new products without burdening the planet, valuing the material to the maximum, providing a good work environment and taking complete responsibility for the products you create.

The first steps are already made in this direction with a partner in Tartu. This cooperation enables us to move faster towards our zero-waste goal and to prove that sustainable leather accessories manufacturing is also possible in a classical production.