Our Story

I started Ari Baby because of a photograph I didn't like.

It was a Brisbane summer, and I was four months postpartum. My maternity leave slow in the way you only get in the first year. I'd wrap my son Ari in muslin after muslin; it gets really hot in the summer, and the little guy was a sweater, and notice every time that the prints weren't what I wanted.

I wanted prints that felt drawn. Beautiful, considered, and rooted in where we live: Queensland sun, the colours of the coast, the warmth of a sleepy Brisbane afternoon. I'm a pharmacist, not a designer, but I knew what I wanted, and I knew it didn't exist.

So I built Ari Baby, and two and a half years on, he still pulls those first blankets into bed.

The prints

Blossom bee, I wanted something dainty. Bees and florals, drawn delicately enough that they don't compete with the baby in a photo; they sit quietly behind. The colour palette is sunflowers: warm yellows, soft ochres, and the green of late-summer leaves. It's the print I default to when I want a photo to feel calm.

Turtle Oceana, I'm from Fiji originally, and we live in Brisbane now, about an hour from the Queensland beaches we visit often. The beach exists in two layers of memory for me: the one I grew up with, and the one Ari is growing up with. Turtle Oceana is both. Watercolour blues and pinks, dense with sea life. It's the loudest of the three prints, and the one that travels with us whenever we're going anywhere near water.

Koala kuddle Ari had a Flatout comforter shaped like a koala that he slept with as a baby. The print started there. It's the most Australian of the three (koalas climbing, koalas dozing), and there's a small detail on every blanket that means more to me than the rest: a mum koala with a baby koala on her back. It's the detail I keep coming back to when I think about what Ari Baby is actually for.

Our standards: both OEKO-TEX and GOTS

I'd been a pharmacist for years before I had a baby. The job means I think a lot about what goes in and on bodies: which substances are tested, which aren't, which certifications are rigorous, and which are mostly marketing. I'd preferred OEKO-TEX and GOTS-certified textiles long before I had a child of my own to wrap in them.

So when I started looking for a factory to make Ari Baby blankets, I had two non-negotiables.

OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is independent testing for harmful substances on every component: fabric, thread, dye. Re-certified annually.

GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, certifies that the cotton is grown organically and that the rest of the supply chain, including the factory itself, meets environmental and labour criteria.

Most muslin brands carry one. We carry both, because they answer different questions: GOTS tells you about the fibre and the people who made it; OEKO-TEX tells you about everything else in the finished fabric.

Our blankets are made in China at one factory, chosen because it holds both certifications. I run Ari Baby from Brisbane. It's a two-person operation: I pack the orders, my husband handles the tech. Three prints we genuinely love, and no plans to grow faster than we can stay in love with what we make.

If you'd like to reach me directly, I'm at info@aribaby.com.au.

Shayal