I started this business 6 months postpartum with my first baby. It has been almost 4 years of creating felt heirlooms for families around the world and I am FINALLY about to launch online.
But first, here is the backstory of how I started this brand and why I am still here.
Where It All Began
The Wilde Store was brought to fruition when I began seeing the world for the first time through my child's eyes.
What I thought children needed for toys shifted, as I watched my daughter take in the world.
We would sit in our garden for hours throughout winter and watch how nature flowed around us. The cockatoos on their flight path home and the Ulysses butterflies that would dance between us. I would whisper stories to my daughter, as we laid beneath our banana trees. There was something potent in the way I watched the sky reflect back in her big beautiful brown eyes. The sudden realisation that childhood didn't need more. It simply needed more space for wonder. I pondered on how I could invite the outside into our homes through play.
I am a Sustainability Analyst by trade and had every intention to return to my career. My creativity BLOOMED when I gave birth and I needed an outlet that could dance in the tender early years of motherhood. Through the life-altering identity shift of matrescence, I turned to hand-stitching as my medicine. I began slowly stitching my daughter heirloom wands that were symbolic to her monthly milestones in her first year of life. Memories forever etched into her childhood that I will remember tenderly into my old age.
The Analyst to Artist Pipeline
About 3 months postpartum, I began attending a mother's group. Where a beautiful facilitator invited me to sell my work after seeing the magic I had woven into the wands.
I almost said no. I thought of every excuse that I wasn't good enough and I wasn't ready. That I certainly wasn't an Artist. 4 years later, many market stalls, global customers, public recognition as a Textile Artist and commercial contracts. I am here now with a refined craft that is a well-spring for my motherhood and my family.
I have heard many stories over the years on why people have been called to my work. From cultural totems and family stories, to holiday memories. I've physically held people as they cried over what my heirlooms meant to them. Every story has been unique and sacred. Ones that I hold with reverence. I am humbled and reminded daily on what my work provides to not only our little people but families.
"My felt work is more than just toys. They are a remembering. A conduit to storytelling and where children can see themselves, their environments and find belonging through play."
I hand design over manyhours the patterns and slow-stitch every heirloom through the ebbs and flows of motherhood.
Every piece is uniquely one of a kind; I never make two of the same again. I like to believe if you feel called to something you have seen of mine. It was likely made with intention from the cosmos for you.
Our heirlooms are made with sustainability at the heart of The Wilde Store and I am constantly seeking viable ways to ensure once our treasures have lived their lifespan, they gently return to the earth.
This has also been a journey of cultural reclamation, through the use of learning and revitalising traditional techniques. My work as a Textile Artist is all encompassing.
What's next...
Our next email is on our launch date, which will be next week! But don't worry subscribers will get the lowdown on what is included and what to expect.
If you have read my heartfelt welcome email and got this far. I again want to thank you in the most gigantic virtual hug! Thank you for supporting my slow-made, mother-led business and allowing me to create magic for your family too!
See you soon!
Big love, Nicole x