Day 3: How you started #MarchMeetTheMaker⠀ ...⠀ Towards the end of 2011 after 12 years working as an architect, I felt it's time for a change. I wanted to spend more time with my family and be creative again as I increasing found myself doing management, responding to emails rather than designing and getting stressed all the time.⠀ ...⠀ I wasn't too sure what to do besides architecture as that was all I know since leaving school. Like a lot of parents, I love to hunt for the coolest kids clothes for our son D. There were lots of really cool Scandi brands that I like and for a boy the brightly coloured patterns, often quite retro, always win over those gender stereotyped slogans, dinosaurs or tractors! So I thought why don't I design some pattern myself and put them on kids clothes. Afterall I had a cute little boy who can model for me for free!⠀ ...⠀ One Sunday morning I was doodling on the iPad and as always thinking about food! I did my first repeat pattern of the English Breakfast 🍳🍅🥓, pretty crude but the ideas started to roll in. I found someone online to digitally print the design on fabric and then went to H&M, bought a baby bodysuit & a T-shirt, cut them up, copied the pattern, stitched them together and voila my first ever Hokolo garment. I gave the bodysuit to my nephew for Christmas and the T-shirt to D.⠀ ...⠀ After I left my day job, I took a screen printing course. It was the year of the Diamond Jubilee and you see the crown 👑 everywhere and this inspired me to design a pattern with the crown and the Sovereign orb for my first ever screen print. The pattern then became my first collection of kidswear which launched Hokolo in June 2012.⠀ ...⠀ Like most businesses, plans changed, I soon realised I can do a lot more if I don't restrict my designs on kidswear so I applied the Crown Orb pattern on homeware. At the same time I developed the English Breakfast pattern and started to work with different manufacturers to broaden my product offerings. It's all extremely fun and I am still learning new stuff everyday, and true to myself, keep changing my mind still 😅 ... #hokolo
