In conversation with... Sticky Lemon
As the new season rolled in at Playtime, so did a new episode of MilK Awards. Instead of walking down the aisles at Playtime Paris, this season the MilK team scrolled through the Playtime B2B Marketplace to sift through the brands and announce this years winners in the category of Fashion, Green, Crush and Lifestyle.
We interviewed the winners to understand the workings behind their brands. Keep reading to learn about the design process and strategies for business post COVID-19 from the winner of Lifestyle MilK Award - Sticky Lemon!
Sticky Lemon is for little and big kids with an outspoken taste in the way they look. It is a quirky, colourful and bold accessories and fashion brand with colour blocking combined with patterns, illustrations and an air of retro aesthetics.
1. How do you approach the creation of a new collection?
Sticky Lemon enjoys to experiment with renewed colour combinations and a wink to retro times. The collections are like little stories and about just having lots of fun.
2. Where do you find inspiration? What do you believe is a good design for the kid’s industry?
We find our inspiration in movies and (children) books amongst other. For instance the Deluxe collection is based on the Wes Anderson movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel. The mood and feel is not only represented in the colours of the bags like Gustave Lilac, Hotel brick or Agathe blue. The photo shoot for this project was done in Hotel Mercier in Amsterdam. In trade shows, we built a real hotel lobby and integrated the complete collection of bags , pencil cases and stationary in order to make the story complete.
The new collection Wanderer and Freckles is inspired by Pipi LongStocking. The main character in one of the books of Astrid Lindgren. The book is about a red-haired, freckled, unconventional and superhumanly strong girl living in Villa Villekulla on her own with a monkey and a horse. For this collection we built a kitchen in the style of Villa Villekulla and the bags have colours named seventies green, pirate purple, carrot orange and sunny yellow. The photoshoot was done in and around a house similar to Pippi’s. We believe that a collection telling a complete story is a good design for the kid’s industry.
3. Due to the absence of physical trade shows this year, how have you modified the sales campaign for SS21? How would the online marketplace help you reach out to buyers?
It is extremely sad that most physical trade shows will not take place or cannot be attended. It is a main part of how we can tell and show the story of a new collection. However we built our own showroom in which the collections are displayed. We believe the images of our photoshoots are very strong and a good combination between style and product photography. We hope through this the story comes across on the online marketplace. And when byers are interested we can invite them in our showroom in person or digital to provide them with more information if they want.
4. In terms of business post COVID-19, how has it affected your overall strategy for the brand?
To be honest we are extremely lucky. COVID-19 did not have a negative effect on our brand. Due to the challenging situation social media and online markets got a lot more attention and exposure. We were able to catch up with this new way of business and hope to continue and grow so we can keep on telling our stories .
5. Can you tell us what you see in the future for your brand?
We started with our first collection in 2016 , we were overwhelmed with the positive attention as of day one. In 2020 we created our tenth. It is so awarding that people understand the stories we want to tell and that they want to be part of it.
On top of that we won the Milk lifestyle award this year! It makes us very proud and confident to keep on going, to do what we like most, telling stories and have lots of fun!!
