I was a big leap of faith. One of those ‘if we don’t do it now will we always regret it’ moments that come along every once in a while. Well we did it and our first range of organic cotton baby clothes that would fit over a cloth nappy was launched in the summer of 2004.

We had one computer, in our spare room,  a dial-up internet connection and a dream.

Now we have twenty one computers, in a purpose built unit, 2 broadband lines…and a dream.

Our dream is for Frugi to be the most desirable and trusted organic cotton clothing brand on the planet.

Frugi clothes are always design lead. It is all very well to have the softest and strongest organic cotton in the world, but if the design is wrong then all ethics and environmentally friendliness in the world will not help. The clothes have to look great too.

We now do clothes for newborn, baby, kids and mother. Our ‘mother’ range is designed to help breastfeeding mums feed their babies discreetly, but in style. Our Baby range is sill cut that bit bigger for cloth nappies and our kids range now goes up yo 8 years old.

We now have a consumer website and a wholesale website and a great facebook page.

The dream is alive…

Kurt (Living the dream)

An update from the Cornwall marine Strandings network.

We have now calculated the total numbers of animals washed ashore around Cornwall during 2009, and it is both good and bad news. The bad being that volunteers from Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network, which is supported by Frugi through the 1% For the Planet scheme, recorded 74 stranded dolphins, whales and porpoises in 2009. The good is that this is a lower figure than in previous years, the all time high being 255 animals in 2003. Among the animals recorded were two bottlenose dolphins. These are the most familiar dolphins and are the favourites of adults and children alike. Sadly, the number of bottlenose dolphins around Cornwall is decreasing steadily and we’re worried about their future. We don’t yet know what impact this is having on the dolphin families, as these dolphins have a very sophisticated social structure with strong bonds between family members. These close ties enable important knowledge to be passed from mothers to calves and the loss of even one member of the group can be strongly felt. With Frugi’s help we will carry on monitoring these lovely dolphins and keep up the pressure to protect them. Thanks Frugi, for making this possible. We really appreciate your support!

Since Lucy and I started Cut4Cloth in 2004, organic cotton clothing has emerged from the fringes to become much more widely known and appreciated. Back then we had to explain to everyone what organic cotton was. “Can you eat it?” was the standard quip. Don’t hear that much anymore.

2009 was a vintage year.

We went to India twice to see our manufacturers, meet the organic cotton farmers and explore. We sent Adam, our photographer, along on the second trip. Hopefully, when his feet touch the ground, we’ll get lots of pictures up on the blog and in the catalogue – maybe even some video of it all. (Do people still use the word ‘video’? )

We donated 10K to our two charities. PAN UK (Pesticide action network) and the Cornwall marine strandings network, via our membership to 1% for the planet

We had a brilliant sample sale and gave the proceeds to an Orphanage near to one of our manufacturers, in India.

Some great people joined us, at Frugi towers,  in 2009. We now have an assistant garment technologist, Abigail, a graphic designer, Nathan, and ‘Doris’ AKA Derek in the warehouse!

Oh, and we also sold some amazing organic cotton clothes. The best yet. Thank you to all of our customers for your support, tweets, face-book comments, blogs, chat etc. etc. It’s just brilliant to get your input.

So, to infinity and beyond! 2010 looks set for even more adventurous and exciting. The Spring stock is arriving soon, and hopefully the sun will shine upon us all.

Thank you so much everyone. No really, I mean it. It’s a blast and it really feels like we’re achieving great things!!

Here’s to the future

Kurt

Her job is to assist Lauren in the measuring, detailing and general getting things right that goes on to make Frugi clothes. As we grow as a company, it’s great to see talented people joining us and helping to make our organic cotton clothes even more special!

That’s the joy of Frugi. At every stage we’ve strived to be better, in everything we do. To listen and learn and to act upon what we hear. Of course, the old adage that you can’t please all of the people all of the time is true. We get conflicting emails and phone calls from customers all the time. Some say that we do too much of such and such, and then aother customer saying that we don’t do enough of it. But we try our best.

It’s an exciting, dynamic and brilliant time for us. And…it’s Christmas too!!!!  (A big Ho! Ho! Ho! from us all).

So, welcome Abigail. Our latest, “Brilliant” person. You’ll get to know us at the Christmas Party – baptism of fire!!

Luckily for our little county in the South West, Cornwall Wildlife Trust have jumped into action and have been working closely with the Institute of Zoology to try to find out why this happened and what we can do to prevent this in the future.