One to Watch Award Collection SS20 CIFF - SOFT GALLERY

One to Watch ‘Collection’ SS20 CIFF Award Winner interview: Soft Gallery

‘A Place Under The Sun’ & ‘ Harvest Collection’

 

How many individuals make up Soft Gallery and what are your roles? 
We are a total of 15 individuals.

• Tine – Head of Design and CEO
• Lisette – Head of Sales
• Kamma – Head of Production and CSR
• Dinah – Head of Finance
• Antonie – Art Director
• Melanie – Digital Communications and PR Responsible
• Malene – Logistics Coordinator
• Julie – Sourcing assistant
• Marie – Design assistant
• Louise – Pattern maker
• Stine – Design assistant
• Tina – Customer Service Responsible
• Sanne – Consignment executive
• Cecilie – Sales executive – DK
• Emily – International sales executive

What are your backgrounds? And how did you get into design for the children’s market? 
We have many different cultural as well as educational backgrounds. Many of us started working in the women’s fashion industry before getting into the children’s fashion market. Tine Graduated with a Master’s Degree in Women’s Fashion, from Royal College of Art, in 2000. She has worked for several design companies before establishing Soft Gallery. We are a small professional family, with huge respect for each other´s skills.

What do you believe good children’s design to be…? 
We believe good children’s design is one that speaks to the heart of children. Introducing them to art as early as possible and telling inspiring stories.

Where do you find the inspiration for your collection? 
From inspirational trips to different countries around the world, as well as museums, libraries, and books. From a huge passion for art and always being visually open to experiencing small details in for example a flower – taking in and recognizing the multitude of colors and textures.

What’s important to you as a brand? 
Here at Soft Gallery, we are ethically and morally responsible for everything that we do. All SOFT by Soft Gallery items are made from high quality organic cotton and the majority of them are also GOTS certified. Soft Gallery is constantly working on adding more organic and GOTS certified styles to its collections. Our focus on high quality and long-lasting items is another approach to sustainability – creating clothes that can last and be passed on to loved ones. Soft Gallery is proudly certificated with GOTS, and works with BSCI and sa8000 certified factories.

What is your companies ethos?  We strive to bring art to the eye level of kids and to pass on wonderful & inspiring stories.

Describe your range of products?
Soft Gallery creates two main collections per year, Spring / Summer and Autumn / Winter, and drops
capsules in between them. The brand also has the NOOS category called Soft by Soft Gallery & Home which includes the AOP owl print, the Mini Splash and the Signature collection. We design clothing for boys and girls ages 0-14 years. tops, bottoms, dresses, thermals, accessories – hair, bags, bed linen, socks, hats, outerwear & jumpsuits.

Some of our collaborations include rubber boots, tights, socks, hair accessories, key chains, phone covers, posters, paper products, dolls.

What are the main materials you use? 
GOTS certified organic cotton, organic cotton, recycled polyester

In how many countries can we find your label? 
Soft Gallery can be found worldwide from Japan to Sweden, USA to Germany.
 
Countries of manufacturing? 
India, Ukraine and China.

Where would you like to take the label in the future? 
We are always working towards more sustainable methods regarding production and creating more pop up up-cycling collections – using recycled textiles is definitely in the future. We are always looking for new up and coming artists. Communicating our messages in new and exciting ways through perhaps more artistic outlets.

Any news from when we last spoke?
We are excited to soon present our AW20 collection – Eye of the Explorer

What Trade Shows will we find you this forthcoming season? 
We will be presenting at KID in Paris as well as CIFF Youth in Copenhagen

3 words to describe your next collection? 
Adventure, Outdoors, Exploration.

Finally, where do you keep your Pirouette One to Watch ’Charmy’ award? 
We love our Pirouette One to Watch ‘Charmy’ award and it sits proudly in our showroom.

---

Soft Gallery

Head office
Brofogedvej 10, 2nd floor
2400 Copenhagen NV
Denmark

softgallery.dk