Award-Wining Kiwi Designer Grows Great Ideas For Baby And Beyond

Please see related Media Release.

Art, ceramics, textiles, graphics, baby gear - award winning New Zealand designer Amie Nilsson has created them all after setting up her own business at just 17. The mother of three pre-schoolers is never short of a good idea, with her unique merino wool baby products winning International Forum Product Design Awards two years in a row.

In 2007, it was the Merino Kids' Go Go bag™, a sleeping bag for babies originally created for her daughter Lily who kept waking up in the night, cold and tangled in her sheets. A year later, her Cocooi™ Babywrap scooped the prize.

The iF competition is one of the top three design awards in the world, with a history stretching back more than 50 years. Each year, more than 2, 500 products from dozens of countries are judged in Hanover, Germany, with the best receiving the "iF seal of outstanding design quality".

The award is highly-regarded, with recipients recognised worldwide as being on the cutting edge of contemporary design. Previous winners have included the likes of BMW, IBM, Apple and Audi.

The awards cap off an incredibly varied career for the Kiwi designer, who always loved art at school but had a hankering to be a photographer "until I was told I could not make a career out of photography".

At 17, she left school in Christchurch and set up her own business, designing ceramics, which she sold around New Zealand and offshore.

A month after she started, she entered her first design - a large platter - into a national competition, which she promptly won.

A department store buyer then saw her works and immediately placed an order, which led to her designing the shop's window displays.

Corporate commissions for the likes of Air New Zealand followed, with Nilsson designing and painting the unique works, which she sold both nationally and internationally.

"A lot of the works were one-of designs so commanded high money. I knew that every day I had a full kiln, I would be happy and fed for he rest of the week."

At the age of 22, she went to Spain and looked after a villa in return for painting the spare room. She created a design matching the curtains, and soon many other villas were donned with her hand painted designs.

Her creations ended up in a three page spread in a British lifestyle magazine so, when she arrived in London, she quickly got a job as a textile designer.

Six months later, she found winter too depressing so escaped to the French ski fields, chefing in Val d'Isere.

As with every other Nilsson venture, she shone at cooking too and, after six months, moved to Zambia as a chef at a safari lodge. In her spare time, she painted and sold her works to the tourists from the USA and Europe.

In the late 1990s, home beckoned and she returned to New Zealand and landed a sales and event management job at Montana Wines. A graphic design course followed, after which Nilsson set up her own business, Amie Design, which boomed during the America's Cup years.

"When I found out I was pregnant, I decided I needed another income."

That problem was soon solved once daughter Lily was born and the Go Go Bag™ concept was born.

Its win at the iF awards led to a dramatic increase in demand, with stockists lining up in Europe, Britain, Australia and USA, plus the creation of two baby clothing ranges - Merino Kids™ and Pure Cotton Kids™.

Nilsson has now built on that success with the Cocooi™ Babywrap, which has been developed over the past 18 months, with her other two children, George and Scarlett, helping as test models.

"While there are other wraps around, there is nothing else like our one. Its vent function means it can be used in car seats and buggies while the wings fit perfectly around the baby. It's light, easy to use and the material can stretch and fit snug around baby's chest, then go back to its original shape," she says.

Both the Go Go Bag™ and the Cocooi™ Babywrap are made of soft merino wool, which can cool the body in hot weather and vice versa, while its stretch capacity ensures a perfect fit every time.

Nilsson has a million other ideas for baby and beyond buzzing in her head and, you can rest assured, there are more award winners amongst them.

For more information visit www.merinokids.com.

Please see related Media Release.

Release Date: 17th June 2008

Back to Media Releases