Discover Peekaboo – India’s sustainable kidswear brand, with GlobalSpa in colloquy with Mompreneur and Founder Poonam Naik-Desai.
When you’re a parent, your utmost concern comes for your kids and providing them the best in everything. Founder, CEO and a mother, Poonam Naik-Desai realized the deficit of high-quality clothes for kids and decided to venture out in quality-wear kidswear, paying utmost attention to detail and design.
Peekaboo is India’s sustainable, lead-free, high quality luxury clothing brand for kids aged between 6 months to 5 years. Traditional sewing techniques and soft natural fabric like cotton are the unique points of this brand which make it so beloved among toddlers and parents alike.
Compelling the curiosity forward, GlobalSpa explores with Poonam Naik-Desai the brand’s story, its products, and future plans:
- Let’s begin with the concept of the brand. How did that come about?
Peekaboo is a homegrown brand, born with the need to provide high quality, luxurious but comfortable sleepwear for kids in an affordable range. As an idea, Peekaboo was pondered and dwelled on for 3-4 years. It took another year by the time we were able to launch our online store.
When I had my son, his comfort was our priority, especially because he had sensitive skin. We found it somewhat challenging to find the kind of clothes that I wanted for him, which would have the right blend of quality & design without compromising on the comfort, more so when it came to sleepwear.
Having worked with global brands for kids apparel, I was well aware of the quality standards in terms of design and aesthetics along with workmanship and comfort. The lack of easy availability made me seriously think and there onwards nudged by my family we started working on setting up an online store which would specifically cater for kids sleepwear.
Strong belief in our product coupled with our positive attitude, we were able to work through some of the initial hurdles, develop our line of concepts and products and set up our online e-store to come where we are today. It is still the beginning and we are aware we have a long way to go especially as responsible global citizens.
- Appreciating Peekaboo on being India’s first sustainable brand for children, tell us more about this step taken towards this segment of fashion.
There are other kids brands who are working on sustainability, so ours is not first in India. Being a mother armed with an experience of working with global retailers I knew the standards that we should aim for in terms of quality and comfort followed by design.
We were very sure right from the beginning that our basic raw material has to be natural fiber with a soft hand-feel keeping in mind the sensitive and delicate skin of the kids. Have narrowed on that, we started working on the kind of dyes that would be acceptable from my child’s point of view.
Our prints use dyes which are lead-free, which does not cause irritation to the delicate skin of the children. We use digital printing technology, which when compared to regular printing process has lesser water usage & chemical discharge thereby reducing the overall waste and discharge in the processing of the raw material itself, but adding to the quality of the product that we offer.
- Do you think sustainable fashion is bound to stay or just a fad?
For me sustainable means creating in a way which is most considerate of humanity and the environment. The goal is to have a system which works without leaving a negative footprint.
We are slowly becoming aware of our responsibility towards our planet and also future generations. This awareness has already started questioning the stereotypes and has paved way for unconventional fibers to slowly start showing in the demand for sustainable fashion.
We will begin to see more of organics in daily wear and with more visibility we will see brands making the switch. The price gap will start to shrink as the market size of natural clothing grows and economies of scale improve.
- What all other fabrics are planned to use in the future?
We are working on making our products essentially more sustainable by adding organic quality of cotton to the product mix, natural fibers and blends like bamboo and soy, which are eco friendly. There will be challenges on the way, but we will take one step at a time.
- What are your future expansion plans?
Our motto is India first. We develop our fabrics & acccessories from vendors in India. As of now, we are looking to explore the potential of sleepwear in kids category. Once we build the trust, we will look at new selling avenues and/or locations.
