I’m Anna Lisbeth, I founded Annaliv in 2013 after training as a childrenswear designer at university and working in the industry for several years. It has always been my passion to design beautiful Scandinavian baby clothes inspired by my Nordic heritage, I’m not sure why. Most people enter this industry after having children, however, for me it was always what I wanted to do. I now have two children, Willow and Samson and the brand is over 10 years old.
Being brought up spending our summers exploring Denmark and Sweden and our winters in the mountains being close to nature I was very lucky. We live in England but I am half Danish and a pinch of Swedish. Having family over there it is a great place to escape to. Sewing became my love very early on and developed alongside creating textile patterns and illustrations. Both my Grandmothers taught me sewing tricks which I still use today and I am lucky enough to be very close with both of them. My parents have the most ‘hyggelig’ home you can imagine, filled with Scandinavian antiques, always with candles, music, and people popping in constantly.
If you could see my studio you would see pinned up in every possible space folk stitches, family cross stitch heirlooms, reels and reels of woven Swedish ribbon, collected old traditional Scandinavian baby clothes and paintings of native folk. Along with white, the soft primary colours which have always been used in Nordic traditional dress are timeless and I always subconsciously go back to them when designing a new collection, I can’t help it!
Annaliv is very proud to have been one of the first brands to focus on using organic fabrics in 2013. It’s very important to me to use natural fabrics, we use a lot of organic cotton, whether it be poplins, brushed, or woven with soft linens. It is the best fabric for the environment and for kids to wear. The designs are more often than not inspired by Scandinavian nature so I like to reflect that not only in the look of the garments and the story in the prints but the feel of the fabric, the way it’s breathable to wear and kind to nature to grow. Which is why we haven’t launched a ‘much asked for’ waterproof Little Grow, we simply can’t find a fabric which we are happy to endorse which is good for kids, the environment and waterproof! We haven’t given up looking yet though…
I’m sure most of you will know all of this if you follow Annaliv on Instagram, but in case you’re new to Annaliv – Hi, it’s lovely to meet you, hope you enjoyed reading a bit about me and the story behind the designs.
Anna ♥
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