Lucky Fish Kids Interview: Fall Winter 2014 Collection

Lucky Fish by Jann Cheifitz offers unique hand-printed clothing and home furnishing made in Brooklyn New York. In March I had the pleasure of interviewing Jann at the Playtime New York Trade Show.

The Lucky Fish Brand DNA is inspired by Jann’s childhood in South Africa along with her global travels. She explained the inspiration behind the company name, “As kids in SA we would say ‘you lucky fish’ to someone who had gotten, done, or become something enviable. And that’s what inspired the company’s name.”

Interview with Jann Designer of Lucky Fish

“We’ve been working here in Brooklyn for a little more than 10 years. Everything that we create is hand-printed and everything is done by custom order. We work closely with our customers to produce something that reflects the personality of the store or the buyer as well as what we do. It’s kind of a collaborative process and I enjoy working with our clients.

Because of that we don’t have the lowest common denominator. So we can have fun with our prints and what we’re doing because we’re not worrying about hitting our numbers. We work very closely with our producer, an amazing printer in our neighborhood. It makes for a fun and diverse product.

I’m the textile designer for all of the graphics of the company. I enjoy getting the most out of each print as possible. So we’ll take a crown and put it on a T-shirt, for a stuffer, as a hat…I really just like to go as far as I can with an image.

Apart from the t-shirts, we do the stuffers that are sort of a shaped cushion, but I see them more as a prop for a play.

The t-shirts are the bread and butter of our line and everything that we do is custom. We have a huge variety of prints. So whatever you find in any given store is going to be a little different. You’re not going to find the same item.

The masks that work for children or adults are really popular around Halloween and are also great for play. We have funny little bags for kids, Christmas stockings, bow ties & lots of fun stuff.”

Lucky Fish Children’s T-Shirts by Jann Chefitz

lucky fish tshirts by Jann Chefitz

Although I didn’t use the name back then, the Lucky Fish idea was born in the mid-1980s, at the height of the struggle against apartheid, where my generation of South African artists was challenged to integrate our political activism and new African identity with our artwork and personal style. In those days, we could be found one day printing a new “struggle” T-shirt or banner to support some new campaign, the next day printing dresses or leggings because we couldn’t find the clothes we wanted in stores.

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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