FK chats to Kelly & Heidi of the wonderfully playful kid’s clothing label Heavenly Creatures.

Tell us a bit about Heavenly Creatures and what we can expect to discover?
Whimsical play-clothes for modern children. This brand statement wraps us up in, well, one statement. To elaborate, we create a super gorgeous collection of clothing for boys and girls aged 1 to 8 years. Designing two ranges each year, we have built a large following both here in Australia and overseas, including our fair share of celeb fans.

What is your background and how did you started working with children’s clothing?
Heidi comes from a corporate background. My background is retail – all aspects mainly visual merchandising, but also a stint in buying for a children’s store while in London. This gave me a massive interest in this area.
We started HC as a hobby/pretend job to avoid going back to our day jobs after our first babies were born. It grew in scale from a few t-shirts stocked in one or two stores to a slightly larger operation.

What do you love about working with clothing? and what keeps you creatively motivated?
For girls who love fashion there is not much not to love about working in the rag trade (except the admin side to things – ha ha). Staying creatively motivated feels incredibly easy. Every collection provides us the opportunity to tell another story. We build our collections around very inspiring themes. Our list of stories yet to tell is very long.

What is your creative workspace like, and what inspires you about your surroundings?
Our creative workspace has been a bit of a moveable feast of late.  We have just moved digs from one studio to a larger showroom. We also both work from home at times being busy mums. My home workspace would make Harry Potters under the stairs arrangement feel positively huge. That said, we find inspiration from anywhere and everywhere – not just from our studio spaces. Visually our studio reflects us and our brand, great colours, fabrics, inspirational books, tears and a good dash of mess!!

What challenges have you faced starting your own label, and what are some things you love about it?
We have faced many challenges in our 6 years of operation. In no particular order:
As a starting out business, finding the best suppliers for everything from trims and ribbons to printing and shopping cart systems. You need to feel your way here, the same thing does not work for every brand.
Then there’s that old chestnut ‘work life balance’. We are both pretty good at this, but without question, as our business has grown, so to have the pressures and deadlines.

What aspirations do you have for your label in the future?
We have high hopes for the future of our little brand. We plan to soar to high heights, take the world. Or at least continue to go down the interesting path we have been traveling on.  It has been lots of learning and huge huge fun so far.

www.heavenlycreatures.net.au