Virkotie is created, owned & designed by Tina Hopkins-Virkotie who was born in Sydney, Australia being the youngest of three daughters. Tina has lived in Sydney her entire life & now has two beautiful little girls of her own. Tina's mother was born in Australia & her father was born in Finland moving to Australia in his teens with his parents for a better life. The name Virkotie is her birth name & father's surname. This unique name was only held by her father's small family in Finland. Her father then married her mother making their 3 daughters the Virkotie family.
Tina has always had a passion for colour & design from a young age. Her Year 6 School Project about what her dream job was "Fashion Designer". Tina was always redecorating her bedrooms from the age 7 & would prefer to be at the local hardware store instead of a Toy Store choosing paint colours to paint her bedrooms & changing colours yearly (luckily her loving step-father always happily did this with no complaints). Also, any colouring-in competition she found she would always eagerly enter & quite often win those competitions (she found the small infant school paper clipping above that her mother had kept all these years in a family album recently).
Cashmere has always been Tina's true love & she has always had a fascination with this beautiful fibre. Tina never could wear wool & other cheaper fibres finding them irritated her skin & she always loved the softness of cashmere feeling so luxurious. There was not a large market for cashmere in Australia especially before the internet & she could never find the cashmere she so desired in the colour & styles she liked. So that is why & how VirkotieCASHMERE was created. First as a hobby & passion which slowly has turned into a successful online store with many happy customers returning from Australia & Worldwide. Now with 2 little girls of her own Tina can let them experience the love she so desired with cashmere & also to the world.
VirkotieCASHMERE is Made with Love by Tina x
PS. Please take a look at some of Tina's photos of her life, love & family over the years!
