What was the motivation behind the Minimuds brand?
Well there’s a short answer…'because I was going insane’,
and as there always is, a much bigger picture.
Everyone has a backstory, and here’s a little snippet of mine.
Who is Minimuds? - Part 1.
First, a lightbulb moment as a 20 year old fashion design student.
The discovery that creating kid’s clothing was where my creativity found its place.
I almost threw it all in before this, because I hated the hype of the catwalk.
Kids gear, on the other hand, gave me confidence and licence to work outside of the constraint of fad-related seasonal fashion. For some reason the competitiveness of the kids fashion world was something I didn’t need to shy away from, unlike the fast paced nature of the Women’s rag trade which damn near stifled the flame.
Enter motherhood. Three rascally energetic boys in 4 years, and a whole new world of supercharged chaos.
Despite the precarious dance I was doing along the slippery slope of overwhelm, I absolutely loved being a mum. I totally owned it, and for a while when they were little and ‘containable’, I thrived.
It was when they got a bit bigger, and after a few life-changing curve balls that I started doubting my ability to raise actual humans. I was by this stage going it alone, and my resolve to be a calm, cool, non-yelly, mum was being seriously challenged. Everyone was cranky and reactive, and the space we shared in the ‘home' I had created was becoming thick and stifling.
This is probably where the seed for Minimuds was sewn, but I filed it away somewhere in a dark corner of my brain, to be revisited on that elusive day when all of a sudden I found myself with enough time.
But right then…I really needed an intervention. Time out.
('Stop the world, I wanna get off’ comes to mind here.)
As the universe would have it, the intervention came barreling though like a goddam freight train, confronting and uninvited (as interventions usually are). Mine was in the form of a skate park BMX accident.
My middle, fearless child with an intrepid thirst for physical challenge, had once again pushed the envelope of danger. Up until now his gnarly technical ability had absorbed such antics, but this one was a pivotal game changer for us as a family.
The external injuries were pretty horrific, but over time they healed.
It was the frontal lobe brain injury we COULDN'T see that changed our world view for a while.
I’ve touched on ’that day' in a couple of other blogs, but I haven’t actually shared much about the accident yet. Not in a public sense at least. (It’s on the agenda for 2022)
The thing is….I was smacked square in the face with the realisation that all the things I THOUGHT were important could be whipped away like a rug from underneath me. There was no ‘easier’ route to choose but straight through the guts of this insurmountable, enormously confronting brick wall, and eventually out the other side. And guess what? We made it.
Intact, connected and heaps more aware.
It’s amazing how quicky us humans can re-calibrate when there’s no alternative. Immediately it became obvious to us (the three boys and I) that we need to get back to nature. We needed more space. Less hustle bustle. Simpler terms, more time, slower days. So we packed up and moved back to our happy place, the Alpine region of NE Vic.
And that’s where I did something I’d been promising myself I’d do for years…bought us some time.
Part 2 coming soon..