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A MATERIAL WORLD: Baby Carriers
One way to start a business is to travel very far, look around, find something incredibly inspiring, made in a better manner to what’s at home, then bring that very thing home.
Another way to start a business is to travel very far, look around, find something incredibly disappointing, made in a far worse manner to what’s at home, then bring the very thing you left to your new home.
And so it went for the two founding mothers of the American baby carrier market: Ann Jones, who went to Togo on a Peace Corps mission, observed local women carrying babies in slings, returned to the US to patent the Snugli in 1969. And Toritse Onuwaje, who came from Nigeria to be a child care worker, shocked at all the crying American babies, designed ‘The Baby Wrap’ based on the ukpoma, a rectangle of cloth used by her Itshekiri tribe to wrap a child onto a parent's back.
Looking at the baby carrier market today, it’s clear there is a third way to start a business. You can seek out an underserved audience.
The owner of Mabē wanted a chic and stylish carrier, so she created a houndstooth carrier made out of organic cotton and linen called the Monarch priced at $149. The founder of the Artipoppe was dismayed her baby’s ass wasn’t adorned with four-thousand dollars worth of Peruvian vicuña and silk, created the Zeitgeist Argus Allure for $4,682 (shipping included). And a father miffed his baby couldn’t take a bullet from an AR-15 designed the camouflage Tactical Baby Carrier for $179.
The market still awaits the brave person who thinks these prices are crazy.
Total Embodied Energy: 30 kwh Lifespan: 3-10+ years Weight: 2.1 lbs Product’s Carbon Footprint: 17.5 kg CO₂e. Materiality: 65% recycled polyester, 35% cotton (Baby Bjorn), 45% mulberry silk, 32% organic cotton, 23% vicuña (Artipoppe)
