Olli Ella : Nursing chairs, Fun rugs, Bedding, etc

In the family of brands created by sisters, here’s Olli Ella, London based children’s label specialised in nursing chairs, bedding and room decor. Chloe tells us more about her and sister Olivia’s story, their experience in business and about their new bedding collection, out soon.

Chloe : “I am thirty one, have two little boys (aged 4 and almost 2), Tennyson and Arlo. My husband is Charlie and we are recent transplants from London to Sydney. My sister Olivia is 29, and lives in London with her husband Patrick, and they are expecting their first little baby, due in February.

Olli Ella started as a bit of a side project about two years later when I was pregnant with my first baby. We launched with two nursing chairs and were selling through a few boutique retailers, when Harrods picked us up about four months later. As you can imagine, things quickly took off!  In the two years since then, we have focused our attention on developing a range of  organic textiles and designs that are iconic yet liveable and are not just restricted to the nursery. We opened an office in Australia in April 2011, which allows us to oversee our Australian customer base, and bring a portion of our manufacturing over here. All of our products are made by our factories in Australia and England, with the exception of our rugs, which are made by some truly talented female artisans in Nepal.

Our bedding is made in England, in a 200 year old family-run mill. We launch with a new collection once a year, and each one is informed by travel, fashion, and peppered with designs that give a nod to our childhood (for example our Harlequin collection was inspired by a pair of harlequin dolls that we had when we were tiny, that we absolutely treasured; our Poppet collection is inspired by a trip to Morocco, where we were awestruck by the incredible vintage tiles that could be found on the street and inside homes).

As a parent (and a dedicated aunty, in Olivia’s case), all of our designs are informed by what we think babies and children will be drawn to, but also recognising that a rug, or a piece of art for example, may not spend its life in a nursery, and may be moved to the living room or playroom at a later date. And so with that in mind we try to infuse an element of sophistication into our collection, and hope that we have achieved this – it’s a challenge working on designs from the inception and then to be able to take a step back with a critical eye (or as is our case most of the time, overly-critical eye!). That said, we are very lucky to have one another as we do provide balance, and can have the frank back and forth that only siblings can.

We have a lot of exciting things on the horizon for Olli Ella; we are launching a new bedding collection in the new year, are adding some gorgeous new rugs, and of course, more of our signature art prints. There is also a rocking chair launching in 2014!“.