Fair Trade – In The Frame

Piccalilly teamed up with our friends at Liv to put together a fabulous exhibition of portraits highlighting the people behind the brand

Piccalilly and Liv launched the exhibition at the Malabar Restaurant in Notting Hill on 12 May and the prints will be hosted there for 2 months, so if you want to see these wonderful portrait photographs taken by Mark Ingram

Piccalilly's Hannah Evans at the launch event at Malabar

on a recent visit to India  then go down to the Malabar – the food is also fantastic!!

The exhibition highlights the people behind the supply chain used by the brands and shows how fair trade and organic methods of production have radically improved the lives of these people.

The launch event was great fun – loads of organic wine and scrummy Indian food plus some fantastic people including the Queen of Fairtrade herself – Harriet Lamb!

Fair Trade - In The Frame

Live on Lorraine’s sofa!

Well it’s taken this long to find time after appearing live on the sofa with Lorraine Kelly on GMTV. Had a fabulous time (was a little bit nervous!) and really enjoyed meeting the apprentice runner up Claire Young who was absolutely lovely. She told me all about one of her new business ventures – Elegant Venues – and had so much energy and enthusiasm it was incredible. The response to my story about how I set up Piccalilly post-redundancy was really wonderful and all the lovely emails that were sent were really very kind – so thanks, I really appreciate the encouragement. A few of you may have noticed that the website temporarily crashed! Sorry – apparently too many people taking a sneaky peak at all our organic baby and kids clothes.

GMTV WITH LORRAINE

It’s been rather a mad week in the world of Piccalilly. Founder Hannah Evans was asked by Lorraine Kelly’s team at GMTV to appear on her show to discuss how she successfully set up Piccalilly post-redundancy. One Wednesay a small crew travelled up to Yorkshire to spend a day in the life of Hannah and her story will be told on Monday morning on Lorraine’s show! That’s not all, Hannah will be live on Lorraine’s sofa at 8.40am on Monday morning – watch this space for a full update on how it went!

Bubble Wrapped

BUBBLE WRAPPED

Piccalilly went down a storm at January’s Bubble London trade exhibition and CWB selected us as one of their favourite baby brands at the show! We met some great new Piccalilly retailers – not just from the UK but from all over Europe and further afield too. We’ve now booked to participate in the June show which is re-locating to the Business Design Centre in Islington and we will be previewing all our new ranges for Autumn 2009 & Spring 2010.

Fairtrade Fortnight Launch 2009

The end of the half term holiday’s saw the official launch of this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight. And as licensee’s of the Fairtrade Foundation (all Piccalilly’s organic cotton clothes come with the Fairtrade stamp of approval that producers in developing countries are getting a better deal) we were asked to attend the official launch on London’s South Bank and preview our new spring ranges. We weren’t the only one’s attending – it was estimated about 8000 people attended and celebrities included Harry Hill (and his nuts!) who held a Harry’s lookalike competition, plus a load of dancing banana’s and a badger! It was a great day and Piccalilly managed to preview their new photographic exhibition too ’Fair trade – In The Frame’ – the response was phenominal and we can’t wait for the big launch in May. It was also a great day because there were LOADS of scrummy free samples from Fairtrade producers including bananas (of course), chocolate, coffee and even candy floss made from Fairtrade sugar - delicious! Here’s to the BEST Fairtrade Fortnight EVER!

New boys spotty range coming soon….

Our brand new boys spotty range is on its way and should be in stock in time for the biggest Fairtrade Fortnight launch. And to wet your appetite here a little sneak preview….

Fairtrade certified organic cotton babywear

Piccalilly going down a storm in Sweden!

Fairly trade baby dress

We’re proud of all the press coverage we’ve had in the UK over the last few years. And as Piccalilly has been going from strength to strength we’ve found ourselves in the international press too. Anna from Petit Pure who has just taken over distribution of the Piccalilly brand in Sweden has been working really hard on our behalf and recently sent us the following press reviews and articles from the Swedish press – if you’ve seen Piccalilly in the press we’d love to know where & when!

 http://petitpure.blogspot.com/2008/12/fin-barnklnning-till-jul.html

 http://petitpure.blogspot.com/2008/09/rttvis-tnkt-i-frldrar-barn-7-808.html

 http://petitpure.blogspot.com/2008/06/petit-pure-klnning-i-frldrar-barn-nr-06.html

Piccalilly är ett brittiskt märke som producerar färggranna och individuella Rättvisemärkta / Fair Trade ekologiska baby & barnkläder. Våra kläder är Rättvisemärkta och ekologiskt certifierade av Control Untion till GOTS Standard. Våra kläder passar väldigt bra i olika typer av butiker såsom varuhus, presentbutiker, barnklädesbutiker, baby och barnkammar- butiker, etiskt tänkande butiker, eko butiker och Fair Trade butiker. Vi vill gärna höra från dig om du är intresserad av att ha oss i ditt sortiment. Vi ser fram emot att höra från etablerade återförsäljare som skulle vilja ta hand och driva fram vårat märke lika mycket som vi gör.

Vänligen kontakta Anna på Petit Pure, våran agent i Sverige, som ser fram emot att höra från dig.

Petit Pure AB, Box 47, 130 37 Stavsnäs, Sverige

Email: info@petitpure.se

Web: www.petitpure.se

 

 

 

Fairly traded baby dress

Chetna Farm Visit

Should really be braving the winter weather at home and preparing for Christmas but in preparation for Fairtrade Fortnight and the launch of Piccalilly’s new Spring 09 organic cotton clothing range we are currently on a mini visit to meet and photograph some of the Chetna Farmers and producers for an exhibition next year.  Hope to be able to show you very soon our latest range of Fairtrade organic baby clothes ranges (which are now GOTS certified).  And will be telling you more about our photographic exhibition.

The history of Christmas Presents

I must be getting old! I found myself telling my eldest daughter ‘Christmas is all about present’s nowadays!’ – just the type of thing my parents used to say to me! Her answer back was – ‘in the olden days (meaning when I was young) did you not get presents?’ Which of course I did. This got me thinking about the tradition of giving Christmas presents, where did it come from? And the answer is people have been giving presents for centuries. One of the earliest known customs of giving presents around winter was during the Roman festival of the Kalends, which occurred on the first day of January. High ranking officials of the Roman Administration were expected to present gifts to the Emporer during the Kalends. Originally these gifts were in the form of branches of evergreen and evolved into gifts of honey and cakes as symbols of a wish that the new year might be full of sweetness. Another early source of gift-giving comes from St Nicholas. During the fourth century, St. Nicholas was the bishop of Myra in Asia Minor. St. Nicholas had a reputation for his generosity and kindness, especially toward children. He was known for giving treats and small presents to them. According to the ChristiaNet website, St. Nicholas has evolved into the magical Santa Claus of today. The giving of Christmas presents in the modern sense seems to have started in America in the 1820s. What had once been the simple practice of exchanging small gifts exploded into the full-fledged consumer driven event we now know. The tradition of giving Christmas presents has evolved hugely since very early tradition’s and gone are the day’s when one present was exchanged. However many people are becoming less materialistic and choosing a much more responsible and ethical approach to Christmas present giving. And with a little planning and making some considered choices ethical Christmas gifts can be sourced which have far reaching benefits to both people and planet.

Ethical Christmas Gift Idea’s From Piccalilly

I hate to say it folk’s – but there’s just four shopping weeks until Christmas! But finding the perfect ethical Christmas gift for your loved one’s doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few idea’s we have come up with for the perfect eco gift and fair trade present for all ages;

• For Baby – Choose an eco fabulous organic playsuit from our organic baby clothes range – Our best selling spotty Fairtrade organic cotton playsuit has been a big hit and was chosen this month by Good Housekeeping as one of the best eco gifts for Christmas 2008! (so you don’t just have to take our word for it!)
• For a girl - Piccalilly’s fairy dresses are always a crowd pleaser – our great quality dresses are hand made and fairly traded from Indonesia. There are loads of colours and sizes to choose from including our best selling pink rainbow fairy dress – featured by Marie Claire as a Best Eco Gift for Christmas 2007!
• For a boy – Boys love cooking and painting too! And a fairly traded boy’s apron from our fairly traded children’s range make’s a great ethical gift.
• For Her – Eco chic organic bathrobe made from supersoft Fairtrade Cotton in Natural, Aqua or Dusty Pink – a super stylish organic gift as featured in Woman & Home Magazine in February 2008
• For Him – why not team up a natural or Aqua bathrobe with a matching towel set

Hope this gives you a starting point for some great Ethical Christmas Shopping!

Organic cotton playsuit & Hat Baby Fairy Dress