Q&A Infantium Victoria

The brand?

Infantium Victoria

Infantium Victoria is a children’s brand that is completely organic and vegan. Julia and Dinie started 7 years ago. At first it was a very small baby collection with 10 pieces, this grew to more and more sizes and pieces. Today there is a complete collection of clothing for children of different ages. The style can be described as avant garde and romantic.

Has the COVID-19 situation in the US impact on your business in Belgium?

Most Infantium Victoria retailers are located in the US and Europe. How do they deal with the corona crisis? They don’t have an easy time surviving. ​“Normally we go to trade shows in Paris, Italy and China, but they’ve been postponed. This means that we can’t show the new collection in the normal way. We came up with a solution, we’re going to run a virtual campaign where anyone can register his/​her child to be part of the virtual catwalk”, says Dinie. An outfit and instructions will be sent, then the fun can start, parents need to bring out their best photographer skills. Their dear daughter or son is a top model for a day. 

Julia and Dinie already felt the impact of corona on their trip to India at the beginning of February. The people were scared because they came from Europe, even taxis refused to take them with them. It was an eye opener for them because in India it is more difficult to do social distancing and to wash your hands regularly. ​“After this trip we immediately decided to let our Belgian team work from home, this was at the end of February, before the official Belgian corona measures. By reacting so quickly, we were able to get everything right. We immediately decided to keep all Belgian employees employed and not declare them technically unemployed. When times are good, we as managers reap the benefits of employing people, when things get more difficult we have to protect them and take the risk ourselves,” says Dinie.

What is the effect of corona on factory workers?

The factory in India with which Infantium cooperates has recently obtained GOTS certification. All factories in India had to close by government order. Most Indian garment workers are paid a little money, but not enough to come by, if you live in the city. That’s why our GOTS certified factory gives a bonus to the workers. This way they both have a salary that is close to their living wage (living wage) what they normally earn. It is nice to see that manufacturers take a holistic view.

In Germany, our factory employees can continue to work for the time being, but they are in a badly affected area of Germany, so as soon as one person falls ill, the entire factory will have to close down. 

Infantium Victoria has been working with this German factory for a long time. The brand has had the factory certified by GOTS, which means that the factory can only produce GOTS certified for the Infantium Victoria brand. The GOTS certificate guarantees the end consumer of at least 95% organic wool or organic cotton and is also known because they immediately check the working conditions of all textile materials and all operations in the garment. 

Question Niki: ​“How much does such a certificate cost for you as a children’s clothing label? Dinie: ” The cost is between 3000 and 5000 euros depending on whether you are a brand or a factory that wants to be certified.”

Finally, they also work together with a factory in Portugal. They earn very little at the moment due to the cancellation of orders. They have taken the initiative to make mouth masks. In this way they can earn something and do their bit to help society.

Information about the factories can be found on the website of Infantium Victoria. The children’s brand is 100% transparent about who they work with.

Trends for next season? Next collection?

Vegan wool, wool without animals!

The winter collection will mainly consist of the newest vegan material invention: plantbased wool. The wool will be coloured organic, linen and white fabric that will also be coloured organic in earth tones. Nice colours to look forward to.

In short

“ We do our best to help both our Belgian design team and patternmakers and the factories abroad. We adapt easily and are prepared to release new collections with different working methods in the future,” says Dinie.