VOTE for Piccalilly - Best Eco Baby Range

We are delighted to be nominated (again) in the BEST ECO BABY RANGE section of Prima Baby Fashion Awards 2010 with Comfort Pure! And we need your help to get Piccalilly recognised for all their hard work and become winners of this section. Our ranges are made not just from any organic cotton – we source very carefully through the CHETNA Project in India. Our organic cotton is certified to GOTS standards and FAIRTRADE certified ensuring our organic cotton farmers are paid a guaranteed price plus a Fairtrade premium for all their hard work. But it doesn’t stop there. Our fabulous CHETNA cotton is manufactured with minimum chemical contact and using only the best eco-friendly low impact dyes. We carry our eco ethos throughout our entire business and don’t model our business on the fast fashion approach of the high street, taking a much slower and environmentally concious approach to our ranges. Quality, timeless designs that are stylish and modern are how we would like to describe the Piccalilly approach. With this in mind please help us to be recognised for all our efforts and VOTE in this years awards by filling out the following survey – BEST ECO RANGE is section 26;

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229P9SVGF9H

Wanted to tell you about our recent trip to India. We arrived in Kolkata to be greated by the monsoons. This always happens in July so this time we were well prepared. It was great to catch up with everyone in the factory and we were delighted to hear that the CHETNA farmers have now increased their share of ownership in the factory to 20% (up 10%). This is great news – cotton farmers at the very bottom of the supply chain often get a very raw deal but this initiative is helping to balance the profits more evenly throughout the supply chain. Sampling for Spring and Autumn 2010 was in full swing and we know when the new ranges come out that they are going to be better than ever!! From Kolkata we travelled to Delhi where we had great pleasure in visiting the BBA – an organisation that rescues, rehabilitates and ensures education for child victims of slavery, bonded labour, trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Last year we were introduced to this organisation through Suzanne Thomas and we helped to support a project by producing 100 t-shirts for the children at Bal Ashram in Rajasthan. Suzanne is now fund raising in the UK for the BBA.  In Delhi we met project co-ordinator Martin Punaks who took us to visit the Mukti Ashram in North Delhi – this is an immediate shelter for children who are rescued from factories in the Delhi and surrounding areas. They are immediately provided with medical help, food, clothing and counselling until they can be reunited with their families. Our visit underlines the need to continue our support of this NGO . We’ll be reporting more on this great project in the next few weeks.  A quick visit proceeded with our Jaipur supplier – they were delighted to hear how well the new polka dot ranges had gone down at June’s Bubble London 09. Seven days into the trip it was time to return home . Delhi had now reached 45 degree’s so we were relieved to return back to the cooler temperatures of the Yorkshire Dales!

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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.