Sticky Lemon Interview #Pirouette12Watch SS18 winner

Sticky Lemon was founded mid 2016 by Simone, Lotte & Dorien. Whilst working on other design projects their idea for a quirky and bold brand became more and more serious. Eventually their first backpacks became a reality and Sticky Lemon was born. This brand was concieved for both little, and bigger kids who have an outspoken taste in the way they look. It’s colourful, bold and sunny. Colourblocking is combined with patterns and illustrations. It was a bit of family affair at the New York show which made for an absolute joy presenting the award. Sticky Lemon #Pirouette12watch winners ss18 Playtime New York! let’s find out more.

What’s your background and how did you get into designing for the children’s market? We all come from different backgrounds. Simone is owner and creative director of Kado Design. A beautiful luxury design packaging company. Besides their own collection designed by the Kado Design studio, they collaborate with designers from all over the world. You can find ribbons, tissuepaper, wrapping paper, stickers, all sorts of boxes and many more in the webshop. Two years ago, Simone founded Rilla go Rilla. What started as a side-project is now a full time business. A platform for young designers to create a whole collection, particularly focussed on bags. In all enthusiasm Monk & Anna and Sticky Lemon where born as in-house labels represented by Rilla go Rilla.

Lotte started as a graphic designer by Kado Design after graduating art school. She’s part of the team for over two years now. When Simone started Rilla go Rilla, Lotte became more and more involved. Together with Dorien, she started to design products they love to make and Monk & Anna was a fact.

‘In a world which already holds so many beautiful things, we merely make products we love. A variety of things for your desk, living, bathroom, closet or just to travel with you. For him, her and little or bigger people. With an eye for small details, the products are stories by themselves.’

Dorien and Simone met five years ago in a concept store. Since then the collaboration between Simone’s Kado Design and Dorien’s ‘wij zijn kees’ started. First for styling and photography but three years ago Dorien joined Simone’s team as creative freelancer once a week. She was responsible for all social media, supporting the graphic design team and when Rilla go Rilla was founded, she worked with Lotte to create Monk & Anna.

Put us three together and the creative energy is flowing. So it was just obvious for us to think more outside the box and create a quirky, funny and bold brand like Sticky Lemon. We want to make fun! Be playful and create bold designs which we normally don’t create for ourselves. Sticky Lemon is our secret escape from the more serious world and to feel like a child again.

What do you believe good kid’s design to be…? It depends on the kid who’s wearing it and what he or she likes. In general we hope to make some smiles. Make kids happy and think they’re so cool when they are wearing Sticky Lemon. They dare to have a more outspoken taste. But besides that it should be comfortable to wear. Easy to clean and good quality, when it comes to our bags. We’re always on the lookout for new materials and more sustainable fabrics.

Where do you find inspiration for your collections? Mostly in our daily lifes and everyday surroundings. We get inspired be nature, sourcing for new materials, colors we find on Pinterest and of course the work of other creatives. It is of a variety of input and we love to mix and match. The best ideas come very spontaneously.

Describe the Sticky Lemon range of products? Our collections consists of bags at first. We have a basic backpack design in a small and bigger version which we try to transform into something new and exciting every new collection. Accompanied by accessories like pencil cases, pencil boxes, notebooks, jumping ropes, temporary tattoos, embroidered pins, patches and other shaped bags. The collection we showed at Playtime also gave a sneak peek into something new we’re trying, a gym outfit and very colourful socks.

What are the main materials you use? For the Sticky Lemon products, the main material is recycled PET.

In how many countries can you find Sticky Lemon? At the moment, in 22 countries.

Countries of manufacturing? Most of our products are proudly produced in China.

Where would you like to take Sticky Lemon in the future? Wow, good question! We think the most important thing for the future is that we’re still very happy and content with what we have designed for Sticky Lemon, and the kids do to. We’re always dreaming of new things, new products we’ve never made before. But for the coming year our focus is bags first. But hey we would love to do more in textile, clothing and shoes. Just keep on dreaming…

Any news from when we last spoke? Yes we do! We collaborated with one of our favourite Dutch families on Instagram, @maandagdaandag. Together with the ladies of ‘wij zijn kees’ we did a photoshoot with them and our collections so far. The upcoming weeks will be all about Elvis, Rover, Wolf and Maantje Piet, showing our designs. So please do check out our Instagram account, @sticky.lemon! And of course we’re already quite busy with the development of the new collection. So many ideas!

What Trade Shows will we find you at next season?
We’ll be attending Sunday School in Utrecht, Maison&Objet, Playtime Paris and Tokyo and Show-up in Amsterdam!

Finally, where will you keep your Pirouette One to Watch Wolf head piece award It’s on our studio wall, proudly hanging there. Just to remind us nowadays of the overwhelming warm gratitude you gave us that day. Thank you!

Well deserved, the quality design and attention to detail makes for a beautiful brand. Lovely, thank you! :-)