Loading blog content, please wait...
By My Blog
How Do We Pick Who to Collaborate With in the First Place? Ever wonder how a collaboration dress goes from "wouldn't it be magical if..." to hanging in ...
Ever wonder how a collaboration dress goes from "wouldn't it be magical if..." to hanging in your closet? This one's a little peek behind the curtain, for anyone who's ever wondered how we choose the makers, artists, and characters we team up with. Spoiler: it always comes back to the twirl.
Before anything else, before we talk fabric or fit or timelines, we ask one thing: would a little one be absolutely delighted to wear it? Not "would it look good on a hanger." Not "would it photograph well." Would she spin in it? Would she refuse to take it off? Would she call it her favorite by Tuesday?
That's the whole starting point. If a collaboration doesn't make us picture a child twirling with the biggest grin, it doesn't move forward. Simple as that. We've walked away from ideas that looked gorgeous on paper because, when we really pictured a four-year-old wearing it to breakfast, it just wasn't magical enough. And magical is the whole job.
Here's the thing about a collaboration. When we put our name next to someone else's, we're telling you it meets the Only Little Once standard. And that standard is high! We've been at this for over a decade, and it started at a kitchen table with two little ones who had real sensitivities to fabric. So "soft" isn't a marketing word for us. It's personal.
When we're deciding who to work with, we dig into how they make things. What materials do they use? Do they cut corners on the parts kids actually feel, like seams and tags and waistbands? A dress can be the most enchanting design in the world, but if it has scratchies, it's going to live in a drawer instead of on your little one. So we ask the not-so-glamorous questions early. Fabric weight. Wash durability. Whether the pretty details are sewn to survive a playground and a spin cycle.
If a potential partner gets a little annoyed that we care this much about seams... that's usually a sign we're not a match! The partners we love are the ones who lean in and geek out about softness right alongside us. Skin sensitivity is common in young kids, and the American Academy of Dermatology's guidance on soft, breathable fabrics for sensitive skin is exactly the kind of thinking we want a collaborator to already have in their bones.
Cute is easy. Cute is everywhere. What we're really hunting for is a design that opens a door in a child's imagination.
I was raised going to Montessori school, and I homeschooled my own two, so pretend play isn't a bonus feature to me. It's the whole point. The best collaborations we've done are the ones where a child puts the dress on and instantly becomes someone. A brave explorer. A gentle queen. A creature from a storybook she's been begging you to read for the hundredth night in a row. That transformation? That's the magic we're chasing.
So when we look at a potential partner's work, we ask whether their aesthetic invites a story. Does it feel like it belongs in a fairytale? Does it leave room for a child to fill in the rest with her own imagination? A whimsical, storybook feeling matters more to us than whether something is trendy this season. Trends fade fast. A dress a little one loves to disappear into? That one gets worn until it barely fits, and then she cries when it does.
A collaboration piece can't only work for one photoshoot and then hang in the closet. We want dresses that go from a tea party to the grocery store to twirling in the living room before bed. That's a real test we apply. Can she wear it to do ordinary kid things, and does it make those ordinary moments feel a little more enchanting?
That means practicality has to be baked in. Can she move? Can she sit at a table and eat a snack without a meltdown over the fabric? Does it hold up wash after wash? A partner who only thinks about "the moment" and forgets that little ones live full, messy, wonderful days... that's not the right fit for us. We want beloved. Beloved means worn again and again.
At the end of the day, this is the real gut check. Would I have dressed my own children in this when they were little? Would I have handed it to a friend and said, "you have to get this one"?
If the answer is a wholehearted yes, we move forward. If it's a "maybe," we keep it in the sketchbook a while longer, because "maybe" isn't magical. Our little ones are only little once, and we take that seriously in the most joyful way possible. Every collaboration we bring you has passed all of it. The twirl test. The softness test. The pretend-play test. The would-I-dress-my-own-kids-in-it test.
So the next time a special drop lands and you fall in love, know that a whole lot of care went into choosing who helped us make it. And know it was chosen with one little twirling human in mind. Yours!