When designer, Jenni Ahtiainen lost her hearing, she didn’t just adapt, she transformed the experience into an artistic and empowering movement. As the founder of Deafmetal, a trailblazing brand redefining how we view hearing aids, Jenni merges bold aesthetics with a deeply personal mission: to make hearing devices visible and proudly individual. What started as a simple DIY fix for her own aids quickly struck a global chord, turning hearing aids into statement pieces of identity and self-expression. In this Q&A with Jenni, she shares more about her journey of design and about her most recent showcase at the infamous V&A Museum in London.
- What inspired you to start Deafmetal, and how did your personal journey shape the brand’s mission?
I am a designer. I was doing accessory and jewellery design already before I got hearing aids. Because of my creative mindset it has been totally natural for me to see things in a way that either suits my style better or is just more functional some way.
Many times, when I’ve moved to a new flat or bought a new jacket I tend to fix them to either suit me better or look more like my genre. Even when I got pregnant my mind started to create a black clothing brand for kiddos, since my uniform has mostly been black and white. The name of the brand would have had a logo of a hairless baby, raising his thumb on a black overall, and the name would have been Mothersuckers. Thanks to my creative hormone circus I ended up having another, a bit more sensible idea, which came out quite good: a neckwear brand called gTIE. Nowadays I can say I have “earned” my credibility as a designer with that one- until I lost my hearing and needed to solve another problem with my hearing aids.
I didn’t mean for Deafmetal to become a brand. I was just tuning up my own aids. But by solving your own problems things just ended up way bigger because I didn’t know that other people were also having the same kind of struggles I did with my aids.
Last summer I realised explaining my profession to a professor from MIT that even though hearing aids are a great invention of engineers, and even though hearing aids solve the problem of bad hearing, the engineers almost completely forgot the user who needs to wear that aid, so my job is to correct the flaws the engineers made, by giving people the possibility to choose how to carry the aids. Possibility to personalise any aid empowers people to use them more.
- How has the response been from the D/deaf community and from those experiencing hearing loss?
Really good. The first Deafmetals I made for myself ended up in a personal post that same evening I got them done. I demanded my husband to take a picture of them since I found out that it’s extremely difficult to take a selfie of your own ear. The post was all about me telling my friends that “I’ve gotten hearing aids but hey no problem since now they look like cool earrings”- that post got 220k views and was the biggest I had ever had before.
The Hearing Association of Finland contacted me the next week and we started to collaborate to empower people to use more aids. In the long run, untreated hearing loss can have side effects like memory and cognitive problems and it’s a big task for hearing associations to deliver on. So, I am there now helping with that mission.
Quite quickly ReSound and Phonak’s country managers also contacted me and wanted us to do something together. So, we did two collections.
With Deafmetal we’ve been building our plane while flying so obviously there have also been some mistakes. One of the biggest was to realize at some point that our key-innovation, the Holsters (jewellery holder around BTE/RIC/CI processor) material was not strong enough, so we needed to change the mix. So, we did and now it works.
Many of our designs are born by customer demands. Not just the jewellery to the end-customer but also the new jewellery fasteners which enable our jewels to be worn with other aids like BAHA and off-ear Cochlear Implants. All different devices need a fastener part which builds “the bridge” between the aid and the jewellery.
In the beginning there was a tribe of device users who didn’t like the name Deafmetal at all. They criticised the name because they felt it was wrong to sell jewellery to aid users whilst calling them deaf. I received hate letters. I go and talk about my entrepreneurship a lot, and people questioned my intention. In the beginning it was a bit hard, I remember crying in my car alone when reading the letters, it felt unfair. I was trying to help people but in the end it was not appreciated by some. Then I decided to simply let, them, be. I liked the humour aspect of my brand name, I liked everything in my new brand, so basically that was the first time I used the f#%@-it philosophy and continued. It was worth it.
Biggest reason for that is the customer feedback which I still receive. And even thought it make me cry too, I now cry because of joy.
- In what ways do you think Deafmetal challenges conventional ideas about hearing aids?
Studies show (Susanne Jacobsen Thesis, Aalto University 2014) that the possibility to tune up life-depending aids empowers users for greater and more regular use. Our own studies have shown that too. Even though hearing devices themselves solve the hearing problem, people need to be able to personalise them for themselves just like everyone has their choice of comfortable shoe and hair styles.
I as the designer accept the fact that hearing aids are designed how they are, and they are meant to provide people the best tools for hearing. So, I wanted to add to the aid, not take anything away. The easiest way is to follow great hearing aid manufacturers and innovate jewellery fastener parts on the existing aids and then provide people an easy way to personalise them. What I do is not rocket science, it’s common sense.
The only way I see Deafmetal challenging conventional hearing aids is the attitude. Many hearing aid manufacturers seem to design their aids as small and discreet and with skin tone colours and market them also like the main argument for them would be “invisible”. What happens is that in the end their message to hearing device users is that the aids should actually be invisible. Many hard of hearing people who use aids don’t hear that good even with the aids and to reach a normal and comfortable conversation situation, presence of hearing aids should be there in every moment.
My probably first US customer Amanda Upson said that Deafmetals gave a nice conversation point to an aid user. Without the jewellery you might not mention anything about hearing aids to the person you are communicating with. But if you have nice jewellery hanging from them, the other person can easily compliment the jewellery, where it’s much nicer for the aid user to respond something about the jewellery being designed especially for hearing aids.
I believe in open discussion in everything, always. And what cannot be covered up should be emphasised. I see my hearing aids as a ‘sign of victory’. By openly showing my hearing aids to others, I am showing that even though I have poor hearing, it doesn’t matter because I use hearing aids, they are a great invention, and I am proud of them. It takes strength to show your weaknesses and shortcomings. Being ashamed of anything makes you seem weak and even untrustworthy.
- How did your collaboration with the V&A come about, and what was your reaction when you were invited to exhibit there?
They contacted me one year ago by email. When I read the email, my world stopped. I never thought I would be good enough for the V&A. Losing my hearing has been the best thing that has happened to me, in many ways. Mostly, I have found my mission in life.
- Can you tell us more about what pieces are featured in your V&A exhibition and the story they tell?
I designed one unique hearing aid jewellery called “The Viqueen” which resembles my own style. I get my recycled silver from the factory all shiny and perfect and then I make them mine by pouring some acid on and burning them. I love marks of life. And I love them so much, I need to sometimes do the marks intentionally to make them look like mine.
Bride Coil Hat with golden safety chains has been in our collection a while. The idea for a Coil Hat collection was originally born while cooking. To be able to add any accessory on the coil of the cochlear implant, the material has to be light and my favourite material, leather, is. I don’t know how to cook food, but boy do I know how to cook materials. So, I throw some leather pieces on my pan and started to fry them. At first, I only fried circular pieces, but my imagination quickly began to spark new ideas. Nowadays, we laser print different patterns and holes onto the leathers before heating them. The first version of the Bride Coil Hat Design was black and called the “Lucy Hat”. It can still be found in the Deafmetal collection. Then one day, for some impulsive idea, I decided to make it in white, and here it is now at the V&A!
- What message do you hope museumgoers take away from seeing your work in the V&A, especially those who may not be familiar with the deaf community?
There is a sign about my jewellery and me next to the museum display case. I would like to point out to people that I did not write that text, nor did I have the opportunity to proofread it. It says that I founded Deafmetal because I have fought against my own stigma. This is not true. I have asked the museum to change the text. I don’t know how that text ended up next to my jewellery, but even if I had suffered from hearing aid shame and founded Deafmetal because of it, Deafmetal would certainly have had the same impact as it has now.
After saying this, I would like all people who visit the exhibition to know, also normal hearing people, that not all hearing device users experience any kind of stigma. I just wanted to make my hearing aids look more like me.
If the text would have been ok at the display, I would have only said: Every innovation, every movement and every change starts with one person.
- Finally, what do you hope for the future of Deafmetal?
More collaborations with hearing aid manufacturers. We are their bridge to the device users and Deafmetal is nothing without the hearing device manufacturers. I am so happy about Advanced Bionics- they came all the way to the opening event with me, we had sparkling together and celebrated this great exhibition. We have their CI on with the Bride Coil Hat at the V&A. I cannot wait to continue collaboration with them. Actually, it will continue today… so let’s go to work!!!
Here at Signature, we would like to thank Jenni for sharing more about her creative innovation that is Deafmetal. By reimagining hearing aids as expressions of individuality, Jenni and her brand empowers users to embrace their devices proudly. Through collaboration with hearing aid manufacturers, Deafmetal challenges traditional notions of invisibility in hearing aid design with an emphasis on personal identity. Jenni, and her journey with Deafmetal highlights the transformative potential of design in fostering empowerment and inclusivity.
Make sure to check out Jenni’s collection which is currently being exhibited at the infamous V&A museum in London!