My biggest love in the world are the children. Since my teenage years, I enjoyed to play with them and pass my time with them, they are the truest.
When I found out I was pregnant, like all Moms, I decided to go to the shops to see all the things that a baby needs. But I finished my day very frustrated, unhappy, because, I found out that all the accessories for baby were quite the same in most of the shops, nothing of unique neither appealing. I started the day with some accessories in my head that I was waiting to find, but I didn’t. When we arrived home we were exhausted , me and my husband decided to hit the sofa and rest a little bit. While chilling, I started to express my disappointment, of not being able to find anything, my husband looked at me and said: “You love to design and be creative, why don’t you give life to what you have in your mind and make your own accessories?”
“Challenge accepted”, I said and the first items got created.
Soon my baby boy was born and he had waiting for him a bunch of accessories, created with love exclusively just for him. All designed, created and made by me. I was so happy!
Family, friends saw all my creations and started asking where have i bought them, they all loved the products. Soon after, I started to have my friends calling me and asking if I could make for their kids or to offer to a friend that was pregnant, and months after I was doing more and more by request. This kind of reaction made me think how serious this could be if I would go a step forward and create a brand/business around it. So I did it.
Now was time to get a name for my brand, and this mission was quite easy. During my pregnancy I gain a lot of weight and my walk became like a duck walk (My husband words:) ), waddle and feet pointing out, but all in a cute way. So, since i’m Portuguese by origin, and in Portugal we call to that kind of walk XOCA, and duck is PATA, we got the two together and we decided that our brand would be PATAXOCA. I became immediately in love with the name.
So, PATAXOCA was born officially in 2015 and since then we have been growing and creating more and more items everyday. But with growth comes other challenges. One of them was, brand internationalization. In order to reach a global market we had to change the brand name, that was a Portuguese concept, into an English one. One thing we had very clear, the Duck had to stay, so we just needed to find a new name to go with it. after a couple of days and a couple of tries we reached to a final decision, The Duckies Design Store.
Now talking about our items, during the creation phase we had some key points for all our products. Top Quality, Skin Safe, Originality, Full of Colors, practical and durability. Looking to one by one:
Top Quality and skin safe - We decided that we should only use 100% cotton and/or organic cotton.
Originality - All items come out from my head and my imagination, and all of them have a Crochet detail, that I love, to say, this is my creation my style.
Full of Colors - Kids love colors and I think the best way to go with their lovely smiles, color and happy patterns were a must.
Practical - I think our life today is very busy and new parents struggle to keep all together so All our items are created in order to make our life easier, even on the smallest task as changing a diaper or give bath.
Durability - We believe that items can have more usage and longer than normal. So most of our items have more than one function and they are evolutive and they follow the growth of our kids.
I love what I’m doing and to know that so many people support my project. I still love every email that I receive from parents saying how happy they are with the products. This is what The Duckies - Design Store is all about.
With all my love
Petra Barros
