Children Shop The Tipi
Today we want to share with you one of our favourite shops, The Tipi. This is one the magical things that happen with the IG community that suddenly you find people with great ideas and lovely shops out there that you literally fall in love with.
The Tipi is a unique children’s homeware and toy store, they provide a quality collection of toys that are creative and well made for little hands, their aim is to provide toys and homewares that remain to be tasteful in your home. If you have a look to their website you will find charming vintage dolls prams, lovely wooden plates or amazing tipi’s in different colors, all their products have been carefully selected and we wanted to know who was behind the whole thing.
It happens that the founder of The Tipi is the lovely mum of two girls, Naomi Clarke that she created The Tipi because she wanted to create something for herself that would allow her to stay at home with her two little girls in their younger years. She wanted her brand and name to resemble some of hers decision so she decided to call it The Tipi’s which slogan is ‘for the love of your tribe’.
Do you want to know something more about her? We just asked a little bit more about this lovely universe.
Naomi Clarke, Founder of The Tipi
Where were you born, raised and based now?
I was born in the north east of England in a town called Scarborough, I loved it as a child and hated it as a teenager, but now as a mum myself I love it. My parents still live there so I spend a lot of time up there with the girls even when my husband is at work we escape up for the week, we always make endless trips to the beach, Heidi is obsessed with the donkeys.
My husband and I met at University and then both moved to London before we relocated to Sydney for over 5 years for our jobs. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done, we did loads of travelling met some of the best friends we’ll ever have. Endless weekends on the beach, Sydney is by far my most favourite city in the world I love that it’s such a vibrant city yet it has some of the world’s most beautiful beaches scattered around the hub of the city. We moved back to England to raise our girls back at home, and it’s been a fab decision we don’t have great sun tans anymore, but England is a beautiful place to raise them and being so close to our family is priceless.
What had you been doing previously?
I used to work in an investment bank, I was based in Sydney. I specifically worked within graduate recruitment where we looked for the brightest young things to become the very best bankers. I really enjoyed my role and we worked a lot with the universities it was always fun yet intense, however I never felt like it was my main destination. The Tipi without a doubt feels like an amazing fit for me, it combines lots of things I love, shopping, Instagram, being creative and it’s certainly keeping me on my toes thinking and planning what is going to come next for The Tipi.
What role do you want your products to play in a childhood?
I want all of our toys to be creative, we are not focused on new gadgets, it’s not that I dislike them and my children certainly have them too. However The Tipi’s brand is to keep children’s imagination alive. Perhaps I’ve taken this from my own children, but my eldest absolutely loves acting out scenes and it’s the cutest thing to watch, you know they’ve picked up all the mannerism’s from your own family. It’s very sweet.
What was behind the decision to start The Tipi?
As many mums and dads know after having children your house can suddenly resemble a playground. You also realise that actually they can’t physically play with all the toys they have. I love seeing my children play with their toys, but the mass clear up of clearing away all their toys once they had gone to bed used to drive me insane. Which is why I decided I wanted to set up an online store that provided unique toys and homewares that were creative and fun for little ones yet parents wouldn’t feel the need to constantly put away everything as they more aesthetically pleasing in their homes.
And finally, what’s next for The Tipi?
Ha, good question! I’m constantly on the lookout for new products which I love, I really try to only stock things that I fall in love with! We’re currently in the process of trying to create our own line of Tipis, which is really exciting. Our prototype is currently in production at a factory in Wales, so it’s very early days, but that will be very exciting for us if I manage to pull it off!
Thank you Naomi!
