When the newest member of the British royal family, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, made his first public appearance earlier this month, both the baby and his blanket made headlines. While the prince looked cute as a button, it was the blanket that his mother, Meghan Markle, swaddled him in that got everyone from babalog to Vogue, talking.
This was a beautiful block-printed cotton dohar crafted by an online Indian label, Malabar Baby. So we googled the portal to find out more. Here’s what we came up with…
For starters, the label has nothing to do with the Malabar coast, it is named after Malabar Hill in Mumbai, where the founder and owner, Anjali Harjani-Hardasani’s family resides.
We wrote to them for further details and were told that the label was launched in 2014, when Anjali had moved to New York and was searching for natural baby linen when she was pregnant with her son, Aryan. She looked high and low to find bedding, swaddles and accessories that were well-made, of high-quality material, and not boring! Nothing she could find was affordable or accessible, so she decided to make her own. She quit her corporate job and after migrating to Asia, called on her family’s decades-long history of manufacturing in China and India to set up Malabar Baby.
The result of years of exploration, collaboration and discovery, Malabar Baby allowed Anjali to combine her love of block-printing with soft, organic fabrics. The brand may be Indian, but Malabar Baby’s designers hail from all corners of the globe, including the US and Hong Kong. The inspiration, too, is global. So, there’s the Southside Collection that recreates the geometric shapes and traditional Indonesian ikat patterns. Erawan is inspired by the streets of Thailand, Miami uses small delicate floral block-prints and large art deco-inspired patterns. Greenwich comes in subtle black and grey hues. The Fort has architecturally inspired motifs modernised with strong, rich patterns and borders. Pink City comes in rose-coloured hues with floral motifs and bold, vibrant borders.