NettoCollection Blog

Rock out with Princess Katie and Racer Steve

It can be tough planning a preschooler's birthday party. You want it to be perfect, fun, and above all cool. Yes, that nebulous word that ensures your footing as a parent. You buy an ice cream cake, balloons, streamers, party hats, and the cutest, sparkly wrapping paper you could find. You have the perfect presents, including that Netto Polar Bear Rocker, but still, something is missing. What will make this birthday, this party truly special?

Perhaps a clown making balloon animals? No, you think to yourself, a clown is not very cool. What's cool? A rock band is cool, but rock bands aren't typically birthday party material, well, at least not a preschooler's birthday party. Enter Princess Katie and Racer Steve.

Moomin Love

The moomins, comic book cover by Tove Jansson. From left to right: Sniff, Snufkin, Moominpappa, Moominmamma, Moomintroll (Moomin), Mymble, Groke, Snork, Maiden and Hattifatteners

I picked up my first Moomin book quite by accident in a Japanese bookstore/stationary store in downtown L.A. Stores like these have the best collection of gumdrop colored notebooks, wacky stickers, gorgeous pens, anime character paperclips and everything else to get your step-daughter excited about having a "desk" and starting "real" school, which was why I was there in the first place. The Moomin book was a bonus - a Finnish/Swedish comic book translated into English sitting among a slew of Japanese manga.

It is hard to say what exactly is so captivating about the Moomins. Is it their loveable bovine-like faces? Their odd, cute names? The sweet and wise way the Moomins talk?

Sacked Out?

It's dark, you hear screams, you enter and there she is…straddling the railing of her crib, clinging for dear life, neither in nor out, all 20 months of her balanced on a Netto oak side rail.  It’s a nasty drop.

So you rescue her, take her into bed and lie there thinking, What am I going to do now?

The Top 20: Home Goods

Let me draw your attention to something that may seem small but means the world to me, and shows perfectly what NettoCollection is all about. The cover article of the January 2008 issue of Real Simple magazine is called

218 Best Buys
The Smartest, Most Useful Products for:
Home
Fashion
Cooking
Beauty
Health

On page 85 there is a NettoCollection Moderne Changer, in a lineup that includes such iconic and beautiful products as the Tivoli Audio Model One radio and Noguchi 55A Akari paper lantern. It's not a feature about only us, it's a photo of black and white objects our furniture blends into quite a bit, but it means more to me than the most lavish dedicated publicity because it shows we have succeeded in doing what almost five years ago we set out to do: to make baby furniture into a product category that was respected for its quality and design. The way almost all the other products in your home are, or at least you have a choice that they can be.

In 2001 when my daughter Kate was born there was nothing out there that wasn't ugly or appalling in its construction, crib and changing tablewise. We were the first, and five years after we showed at ICCF and many struggles later we are still here, and it's a very sweet thing to see a Netto Changer lined up with all those extraordinary designs as though Changing Table always belonged there. And I guess that's because now, it does.

My goal was to get a crib into the permanent collection at MoMA. It's good to have dreams, but seeing the article in Real Simple is a dream come true. Funnily enough it was shown to me by a lady at my chiropractor's office, the excellent Dr. Randall Stitt of North Hollywood, California...I missed it on the stands and might never have had the pleasure of writing about it on this blog! Thank you to all our customers and supporters who have brought Netto and the movement for great design in Baby this far. And as if the picture wasn't enough, the article is introduced with a quote from William Morris: "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

Right On.

By David Netto