Did having a baby throw you out of the loop? Did it turn you from stylish and sleek into frumpy and dull overnight? It doesn’t have to be that way. Now, you can keep your fashion sense—and your sense of self—even with junior in tow, thanks to the clever invention of two business-savvy Swedish moms.
“After I had my baby I realized I didn’t want to go back to my job at the advertising agency, I just wasn’t ready,” says Caroline Roth, a Swedish woman with a long career in advertising behind her. “I wanted to do something freelance-based, I just didn’t know what. Then one day I sat at a café in Soho and saw all these Bugaboos (a high-end brand stroller). I must have seen thirty of them and they all looked the same— black, blue or red—and that’s when I got my idea.”
A new mom living in New York City, Roth then partnered with her best friend from Stockholm, Caroline Rönnberg, and together they founded My Hood, a New York-based company that turns an ordinary stroller into a fashion statement.
“Both Caroline and I love fashion, and I know a lot of moms do. Especially here in New York, you see all these cool moms with strollers that are just plain. So when I came up with the idea of a tailor-made hood I knew it was a great one. Caroline and I wanted to do something for the stroller that complements the mom rather than the baby. We didn’t want the usual babyish stuff, and we wanted fashion and style. We wanted to turn the stroller into a fashion statement.”
Looking at the latest trends on the runways, the two Swedish entrepreneurs adapted what they liked into hoods fit for Bugaboo strollers (Bugaboo Cameleon and Bugaboo Frog). You simply slip the cover over the hood of the stroller. There’s something for every mom, whether her style is classic chic or bohemian funky. The best seller Allegra, for instance, is a Missoni-inspired hood, and then there’s a wild thing called Willow, a zebra-patterned hood in a luxurious fabric. The sassy Montauk is a hood with suede fringing and a cougar-patterned interior.
“We took the basic ideas from the runway and translated them into these hoods,” Roth explains.
My Hood features two lines, Haute Couture and Premium. The Haute Couture line is a little pricier, while the Premium line is more affordable. Both lines offer hoods with fluffy linings in mink-like material and personal embroideries. All hoods come with matching blankets and are hand made in New York City.
“Now as you change your clothes depending on your mood, the weather or the season, you can also change the look of your baby stroller,” Caroline says.
There’s also a sporty version for all you dads out there.
For more information:
www.myhoodbaby.com
