Behind The Brand: Indigo & Lellow

Effa Dodd was inspired to create organic baby wear after struggling to find chemical-free clothing for her newborn baby, who suffered allergies and sensitive skin. Today, Indigo & Lellow not only dresses sensitive babies, but the gender-neutral, quality classics mean this label has become an heirloom favourite, passed down between siblings and beyond.

Here, Effa shares the heart-warming story behind Indigo & Lellow...

Indigo & Lellow are more than just organic baby wear for babies with sensitive skin – can you elaborate?

Indigo & Lellow aims to lessen the heartache, time and costs involved with having a newborn who suffers from allergies and sensitive skin. The Indigo & Lellow clothing is one of practicality yet fun. The gender neutrality also means siblings can also wear the clothing no matter if they are a boy or girl.

What it was like for you as a mum with a newborn with sensitive skin?

My son’s allergies and sensitive skin went hand in hand. It was hard to see my son being uncomfortable and not knowing why he was getting rashes. When we didn’t know the source, it was pretty much akin to being in the dark. There were a lot of doctors’ appointments to try and figure out the reasons. We finally found out the first allergy when he was about 8 months and we were trying out formula for the first time. His stomach came out in rashes and we took him to an allergist, which gave us more definitive answers.

You did a lot of allergy research to keep your baby safe. What did you discover?

Mostly any scented products were a definite ‘no’. I spent a lot of time in grocery stores just reading ingredient lists. Food wise, it was hard. He was allergic to eggs and dairy, which meant there were a lot of easy 'off the shelf’ foods that he could not have.

With clothes, we had to remove all the care tags so they didn’t itch his neck or any other part of the body. Detergents and soaps were the toughest things-we had to eliminate anything that contained parabens and SLS(sodium lauryl sulfate).

How did your personal experience inspire you to launch Indigo & Lellow?

This experience led me to create clothes using organic fabric, which are grown and harvested without the use of toxic chemicals. My first products were simple, practical clothing for the parents.They were inspired by my son’s love of animals, and therefore themed the ‘zoo collection’ with gender neutral colours.

Today, we still hold the same practicality and gender neutrality in our clothing. The organic fabric is still our main focus with every fabric sampled and touched prior to production.

What is Indigo & Lellow’s business philosophy?

My business philosophy is to make our product more sustainable for the future. We look at everything and have made an investment into our future by investing in plastic-free packaging and making sure our production is plastic-free, from seed to stores.

We’ve designed our ranges to work with each other to try and slow down this fast fashion cycle and stop people thinking of fashion as a perishable item. As well as being practical, most of our prints are gender neutral, so the clothes can be used again and again and passed down. The changes we are making and will continue to make on a social and environmental level are all helping to make our product more sustainable in the future.

 
Parents with babies who have sensitive skin, as well as eco - conscious parents use your products. What do they say?

A number of parents have mentioned the softness of our fabric. One customer, whose child had eczema, was thankful for our onesies and the softness of our fabric, which helped her child’s eczema prone skin to calm down.

Shop the Indigo & Lellow collection at One Fine Baby here.

Want to see the products up close? Come to our next Sydney baby expo or Melbourne baby expo by visiting our Sydney baby expo page here or our Melbourne baby expo page here.