(A Personal Letter From David TG) : KAISU PAAKKOLA - my girlfriend of 12 years and 3 months, and designer / partner of Torture Garden Clothing, died around 9pm on Friday 20th September 2002 aged just 36. She had been admitted to intensive care on the previous Friday suffering from severe double pneumonia, and after making good progress initially, respiratory complications developed and she deteriorated rapidly in the afternoon of the 20th.

Fortunately close friends and family were informed when her condition became hopeless and we were able to spend the last 2 hours with her and say goodbye, and I had my arms around her and my head against her head when she passed away.

I would like to give enormous thanks to the close friends who supported me whilst Kaisu was in hospital and in the aftermath of her death. Especially Angie who was so strong and was there for me when Kaisu was first admitted to intensive care, and as a Nurse told me how it really was at the very end; Allen TG who took on the responsibility of telling everyone the terrible news when I could no longer speak; and also Jasmin, Adam, Jim, Hannah, Diz, Sophie, Isabel and both my own and Kaisu's family for just being there for me. The incredible number of messages from other friends to numerous to mention from all around the world, and the fetish community at large, has also been overwhelming and given me strength from knowing that so many people loved Kaisu so much.

I miss saying her name, I miss her touch, her smell, her taste, I miss seeing her walk into a room, I miss her eyes, I miss her smile, I miss the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, I miss the most original (without trying), unique and most of all pure person I've ever known. She was my soulmate and I have never met a more compatible couple that were meant to be together more. My sense of loss is indescribable and unbearable, and its getting worse by the second.
Kaisu, Kaisu, Kaisu... where have you gone?

Kaisu's influence on the fetish scene, club culture and most of all Torture Garden was also massive, and she has left a gapping hole.

She was there with TG from the very beginning. I met Kaisu just a couple of weeks before I met Allen TG over 12 years ago, and Allen even came along on our first real date. Although she was never officially part of TG until she launched the clothing label this year, she had an incredible influence on the ideas, concepts and most of all imagery of the club behind the scenes, and TG would never have been the club it was without her. She only missed one TG London event in the full 12 years! Recently she also created all the fashion shows for House of Harlot both at TG London and our many TG tour dates around the world from Moscow to Croatia to LA to New York to Tokyo. Her shows became an essential part of the TG experience. But most of all she had such an impact on TG and the club scene because of her shear presence and personality. No one looked like Kaisu and she maintained a position as the best dressed girl in town throughout the years. If any one person represented the look that was TG it was her, and her personality was as dramatic as her look. No one pulled such mad facial expressions as Kaisu! She was real and never fake. She liked you or she didn't.

Many people were scared of Kaisu when they first met her and they thought she was unfriendly, and she certainly could be a moody cow at times. But she was not as confident and as strong as she appeared. In fact she would be totally amazed by how many people care so much about her death. She was shy and sensitive. But if she really liked you, she REALLY liked you!

Kaisu loved cycling, walking in Highgate woods, a pint of beer in an English pub, cuddling on cushions, watching romantic world war II films, holding hands, the colour red, snow, birds, red crosses, laying on a beach, eyeball licking, the Imperial War Museum, crap music, British humour, ski-ing, dressing up and most of all anything Japanese.

If the loss of someone so loved and with everything to live for was not enough, the timing of her death is tragic to biblical proportions.

This year was so tough for Kaisu. All at the same time in February, she lost her job unfairly, some of those closest to her let her down badly as she lost her best friends, and we also suffered the most difficult relationship problems we had experienced in 12 years. It was hell for her and almost destroyed her, but she showed enormous courage and determination, and I was so proud to see her fight back, and in the last 7 months she held our relationship together, built important new friendships that meant so much to her, and rebuilt her career by starting her own clothing label for TG. Kaisu had just 7 months to design and manufacture a full collection, produce a catalogue, and set up a new company in time to show and sell over the Rubber Ball Weekend, and she had to do it almost entirely alone. She worked not stop throughout those months, almost 7 days a week at home after setting up a temporary workshop in our kitchen. At first she was so hurt by the way she had lost her job, but in time she came to realise her personal growth was more important than revenge. It was the best thing that had ever happened to her and it forced her to be more ambitious and to believe that she could run her own business and prove her self as a designer. In the end she achieved her goal by designing a fantastic range of over 30 complete outfits that were good enough to establish both herself and TG Clothing as one of the very best 2 or 3 latex labels in the world. She had designed the collection, made the samples, found a workshop and first employee, shot the photos for the calendar, and had started manufacturing. With just 3 weeks to go before the Rubber Ball Weekend everything was on schedule. Then Kaisu was taken to hospital the very same day that her new workshop opened for the first time, and she died just 2 weeks before the Ball Weekend and before her catalogue was printed and before anyone had really seen the collection. She worked herself into the ground to produce a collection and tragically fell at the very last hurdle.

I'm sorry that she worked so hard in the last year and we personally didn't have as much quality time for each other as we both would have liked, especially now we'll never have the chance again. But despite the tragedy of her never seeing the fruits of her hard work, she was enormously proud of the collection she created. Although it was her first collection, and she thought it was a modest and commercial range, and her second collection would have been more ground breaking. She called her outfits her babies, and she lived long enough to prove that she could do it, and the response of those that saw her samples and photos was fantastic. Also despite taking up most of our time together, it was a great experience for Kaisu and I to work so closely together in the last few months, and I loved working with her on the styling of the catalogue photo shoot. We were a great team. If her collection was her first babies then it is so sad that she died at childbirth and will never see them alive.

It seems so unfair that she lost her life with so many exciting things to live for.

'Kaisu - I'm so sorry that I wasn't there for you as much as I should have been in the last year. I thought the 12 years we had together was such a long time and I took you for granted. I thought forever was such a long time. I thought you would always be there for me. Our favourite saying of the last year was 'Now is forever', but we were too busy to have much time for the now. We had always wanted to get married but I wanted to wait and do it in a really special way. When you were unconscious in hospital I told you that I would marry you if you recovered and we would go to Japan. I hope you heard me. We had wanted to have a child together sometime, but were too busy living like children to fit it in. 12 years seems like nothing now compared to the possible 30 or more years we have lost. There were still so many dreams to live.'

I am left with 12 years of memories, hundreds of amazing photos, your beautiful clothes, the many magical objects that we collected together and a silent flat. But the memories are fantastic and we had more happy moments in our 12 years together than most couples in a lifetime, and those memories will last forever.

Today I had to do the most difficult thing of my entire life and choose what Kaisu would wear in her coffin. She'll be buried in her native Lapland, Finland, in the snow, and she will be wearing her favourite orange kimono (bought in Japan last year with Ikuku), white Japanese socks and geisha shoes.

Goodbye Lapland bird.

I will always love you.

David

PS: The messages on the TG website are incredible, thank you so much to everyone who contributed.

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