When Fozia Hill's daughter was born six years ago she discovered a distinct lack of attractive and ethical babywear, for both girls and boys.
After spending a few years acclimatising to being a new mother, Fozia put the wheels in motion for her organic baby brand, Fozia London, launched this season.
The first task was finding the perfect factory that matched Fozia's green ideals. "I looked for a year and eventually found a lovely one in India. There's not a huge amount of fair trade factories there so when I found this one I just went with my gut instinct. I got a really good vibe from it," Fozia says.
The fair trade factory in Calcutta is a family-run business that has more than doubled its employees in five years and often puts some of the money it makes back into the local area, in particular into schools.Next came designing the range. Fozia follows a straight-talking style principle: "Clean lines, simple cuts". And it is that simplicity which has won over many mums already. "I wanted it to be classic and stylish. To be seasonless and always offer the basics as well as something that can be handed down to brothers and sisters," says Fozia.
Award winning designer, Sarah Hawkins collaborates with Fozia. "Sarah wrote her thesis at University on organic lingerie and I just thought 'you're brilliant'. I'll talk her through an idea, then she would go away and sketch it, then come back and show it to me and it was exactly what I was thinking."
Fozia showed her collection to retailers in June and the pieces were so well received that within days the Fozia London collection was already in some shops. With a number of reorders in the pipeline, the range may be in its infancy but it has certainly learnt to crawl fast and is now strolling on to conquer its next batch of stockists.
One of the best-selling pieces is this pink kimono babygrow, £12. Diligent thought has gone into spicing up a simple piece. It's the only look a thoroughly modern baby girl should be banging her spoon in. [By Mandy Barder]