About
Some friendships are built slowly. Ours started in The Whitehorse pub in Soho, London we didn't even know we'd both been drinking in and was sealed within two hours of properly meeting in Sydney's suburb of Bondi. Over thirty years later we still say we feel like part of the same soul on this journey. We think alike, we agree on almost everything and we've never had a serious falling out. We're not sure that's normal for a business partnership but we'll happily take it.
This is the story of how Maud N Lil came to be.
The beginning
Manda studied fashion design in London while Vicki was working in the industry there for Monix. In 1993 their paths uncrossed and crossed again. Manda emigrated to Sydney while Vicki returned home from London also to Sydney.
With a small business grant and a mentor through The Prince's Trust, Manda set up Maud N Lil as an organic cotton clothing brand. She needed someone with pattern making and sewing experience and a friend suggested Vicki. They met in Bondi and decided to run the business together within two hours of meeting.
The name Maud N Lil comes from Manda's great, great grandmother - Alice Maud and Vicki's Grandmother Lilian. Both wanted a name that showed their commitment to sustainable textiles and harking back to previous generations who were more conservative with resources.
The fashion show that didn't sell any fashion
Our first collection was shown at a friend's apartment in Chippendale. Buyers came along to look but organic cotton was such new territory that most didn't understand a T-shirt could be made from a plant. The only orders came from Greenpeace's cause marketing catalogue Greengoods. For the next few years we supplied Greenpeace, Amnesty International and WWF.
Then one Christmas Greenpeace asked for a soft toy for babies. We made a floppy teddy bear and a soft toy dolphin. They landed on the cover of the catalogue and sold out. That was the moment we realised baby was the way into organic textiles, not adult fashion.
Niching into soft toys
We moved into a small office in an old maritime building at Towns Place in The Rocks and left clothing behind to focus entirely on soft toys, manufacturing with a boutique factory in Sydney's western suburbs.
The following Christmas David Jones ordered 900 bears and we knew we'd outgrown our supply chain. We found a vendor in India where GOTS certifiers had built a genuine organic cotton programme, but the toys were handcrafted and retailers wanted consistency across every piece. We stalled while we searched for a stable answer, working out of a shared office on Riley Street in Surry Hills alongside our friends at Mud Australia.
Finding our people in Shenzhen
An email arrived out of nowhere from a factory in Shenzhen who wanted to make eco plush toys and do good work. We were wary at first. China's manufacturing sector had a reputation problem at the time, with reports of poor conditions and worker exploitation across the industry.
So we went to see for ourselves. Both of us visited China and found a legitimate, ethical, GOTS certified operation with genuinely good quality. That was 2010 and it's the year we felt we finally had a proper business.
Where the comforter idea really came from
Since she was a baby, Manda has had a favourite soft toy bunny named Benjamin. "Benj" travelled everywhere with her growing up and is still hidden in a cupboard today.
Vicki's keepsake was different but just as precious. As a very young child, with her Dad often away working, she held onto a hankie that belonged to him.
A well loved bunny and a father's hankie, kept for a lifetime between the two of us. That's the real inspiration behind our first Maud N Lil comforter.
A decade of growth
Through the 2010s we grew into 500 stores across 9 territories. We created our first comforter, part toy and part blankie, at a time when the category barely existed, drawing on Benjamin Bunny and Vicki's hankie as the heart of the idea. Manda travelled to meet distributors across Europe and the Middle East. It felt like the future was wide open.
Along the way we were honoured to win The Green Lifestyles Award for Best Kids Product.
2020 and everything after
Covid closed retail doors around the world and, like so many product businesses, we found ourselves scrambling into e-commerce. We launched our Shopify store and started a learning curve we're still on today. Retail changed for good and a new generation of shoppers changed with it.
This year we've refreshed our packaging so it ships beautifully and still has shelf appeal, and we've begun a partnership we're incredibly proud of: the exclusive licence for the organic cotton Ruby Red Shoes doll, working with author and artist Kate Knapp.
Where we are now
Vicki lives in Melbourne with her husband Pete, a talented seafood chef and runs operations from there. Manda is raising her gorgeous twin girls and lives by the beach in Sydney. Both girls are lifelong product testers and confirmed Ruby Red Shoes fans.
What it all comes back to
Three decades in, we're proud to have been part of the growth of the organic cotton industry. In a world where most soft toys are polyester plastic plush, we make the alternative:
~ Natural fibres, not plastic
~ Chemical and pesticide free
~ Breathable and gentle against baby's skin
~ Made to be loved, not landfilled
We still love what we do. We hope you can feel that in every comforter, every bear and every stitch.
OUR IMPACT
At Maud N Lil we have always taken pride in the high quality and sustainable practices behind our business. We began Maud N Lil in 1993 and we are committed to developing the best possible products for your family and friends with the purest materials and ethical supply chain.
CERTIFIED ORGANIC COTTON
We source the finest Certified Organic Cotton available from Certified Organic farms. Unlike conventional cotton farms, the farmers are not exposed to harmful pesticides because organic cotton is not sprayed with these chemicals.
ORGANIC STANDARDS
All of the cotton used in our products is certified organic to both the international Global Organic Textile Standard. GOTS is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain and is audited annually.
TRANSPARENCY
We are committed to building a completely transparent supply chain. We believe it is important to understand the journey that every single stitch and material used in our products has taken to get the hands of your child. We're also committed to sharing that journey with you.
