Personal Experience and Filling a Need Leads to Great Product Design
Jasmine Bashaj shares with us how she created a line of Canadian-made eco-friendly vibrant (and cute) children's clothing. On Saturday, I showed you some examples of her line, which I will show you a glimpse of again here:
Using her own experience as a mom, graphic designer, illustrator and – perhaps most importantly – practical thinker, Jasmine Bashaj has created the So Rad line. It’s the funky and functional solution to the pet peeves parents have long had about children’s clothing, and the great news is time-strapped parents (and those tethered to a nap/feed schedule at home) can now click ’n’ buy on So Rad’s new website, www.shopsorad.com.
A mother of two young tots, Bashaj has endured her share of messy moments and most of them could have been avoided had her children’s clothes been better designed. On a mission to “make Mummy madness manageable,” Bashaj has developed a high-quality clothing line that is eco-friendly, reasonably priced, locally made and, above all, fantastically functional. The clothes feature ingenious details such as durable triple-stitched cover seams, no-pinch wide elastic waistbands, generous sizing in the bum to accommodate cloth diapers, and prewashed materials for minimal shrinkage and maximum softness.
Parents will also feel good knowing that every part of So Rad’s design and manufacturing process is done locally. Unlike other lines, even the fabric used is knit in Canada. A hands-on entrepreneur and proud Canadian designer, Vaughan-based Bashaj would have it no other way. She’s also passionate about keeping our world clean for the generation that wears So Rad, so she’s gone to great lengths to keep the line environmentally responsible.
So Rad’s clothes use environmentally responsible inks and material that’s 70 percent bamboo and 30 percent certified organic cotton. The world’s fastest-growing plant, bamboo isn’t only super sustainable; it also has antibacterial properties – a bonus for material that’s in such close contact with little ones’ skin.
With vibrant, stylized graphics and punchy colours, any child wearing So Rad at the playground (or even nuzzled in their stroller) will stand out. Parents can deck them out head to toe in the same colour, or easily mix up the separates since the whole line is done in complementary colours. For added kick, threads feature contrasting colours; for instance, green pieces use brown thread and pink items use orange.
About So Rad:
Founded in 2009 by Jasmine Bashaj, So Rad is a creative and highly functional clothing line for babies and toddlers. Bashaj, a successful digital illustrator, motion graphic designer, college instructor and mom of two (who obviously needed more to take on!) created the clothes after fans of her popular So Rad greeting card line encouraged her to put her unique graphics on children’s clothes. Fed up with mass-marketed and expensive garments that pinch, fall apart in the wash, or are made under dubious working conditions using inferior materials, Bashaj made sure that every step of the So Rad process is done locally, and eco- and parent-friendly. When she’s not working on new designs or spending time with her little ones and husband, Vaughan-based Bashaj is trying to get some sleep. Check out So Rad’s hip new website at www.shopsorad.com.
