Sophie Catalou Interview: Spring Summer 2014

At ENK Childrens’ Club Trade Show in New York on August 5th, I got a preview of the Sophie Catalou‘s Spring Summer 2014 Collection. Sophie Catalou’s baby, boys and girls collections feature premium cotton fabrications and knits, exclusive prints and yarn dyes.

Watch the video to get a feel for the brand and read a summary of the video interview.

Read Interview with Sophie Catalou at ENK

“I was trained in textile design so that was my first love, textile printing, and wovens, mostly printing. I worked in various companies, and then I became a fabric stylist. Then I became a fabric buyer, so that part I know very well.

What inspired you to create your brand?
We started when I had a baby. I’ve had various ideas about starting my own business. Then I worked in product development so I had to travel a little bit too much. I decided to do something on my own so I don’t have to travel as much or travel on my own terms. So, this said and done, my baby was about 2 years and that’s when I pulled the plug on with the day job and started this.

I met a wonderful woman in India through my work contacts who is now my partner. She worked in product development as well in the past and that’s how we started.

What special fabrics are used in your Spring Summer 2014 collection?
First I just hand painted right there in the hotel in India and then we give it to the printer, we have the most amazing printer who can achieve this printed by hand and then we put in different colorways.

sophie catalou pink dress spring summer 2014
sophie catalou hankerchief hermes dress

This pink dress is one of the favorites. I really love this dress. It came out really well. Also in the same market somewhere deep in India, we found this beautiful paisley fabric and that became a hanker-chief dress.

sophie catalou Gold dress
sophie catalou Jane pink garden dress

This amazing gold brocades that are just very special looking. You’ll find different fabrics that are done in sprays and foils and all sorts of treatments to the fabric to achieve this type of amazing effect. I just fell in love with that and thought that gold would be very important.

sophie catalou purple dress
sophie catalou polkadot dress

Then I found this fabric that is a really sheer beautiful complex nylon polyester blend and that translated into colors and it became bronze which is really pretty.

And something amazing here, Erica is our intern from Parsons and she developed this royal dog which is absolutely fabulous.

I do outsource fashion designer per se to people who are better at it. So we have collaborations in Europe, here with our interns who are very talented from Parsons and my alma mater FIT. It’s is a collaboration, Europe, United States, India you name it. It’s really interesting what you can do now on the internet.”

Laura Yatim Dashin Fashion Kids Style Blog
Written By
Laura Yatim

I love to travel the world and discover the best in kids fashion at international trade shows to luxury baby boutiques. Come & join me on my journey and I'll share my favorites.

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