Kate & Kate is the brainchild of sisters-in-law Kate Pascoe and Kate Pascoe Squires and together they created a brand that offers a range of Australian designed textiles and soft furnishings for the home.
Launched with a small collection of cotton blankets in 2013, Kate & Kate now produces two seasonal collections per year, all carefully created using only the highest quality materials and craftsmanship.

They are renowned for their clean lines and geometric shapes and have released a beautiful new collection featuring cotton blankets, 100% linen throws, cushions, napkins and luxurious bath sheets, hand towels & beach towels.

Scroll down to read my interview with the two lovely ladies and find out more about their blooming business... x

Tell us about Kate & Kate Blankets?
Kate & Kate really came about by accident. We were visiting an international sourcing fair, both with the intent of starting totally separate and very different business pursuits. We met our manufactures and just kept coming back to them over the morning, asking questions about their capabilities, quality etc etc. By the end of the day, we’d decided to start a business together and blankets would be our thing. Hello Kate & Kate! It took us more than 12 months to launch the business, going back and forth with samples, developing our brand, creating our website, researching the wholesale side of our business. It was a steep learning curve (actually it still is!), but with the support and encouragement of some key people we launched Kate & Kate in October 2013. We now produce two seasonal collections of Australian-designed textiles and soft furnishings for the home every year, all carefully created using only the highest quality materials and craftsmanship.

We love your design style – Can you tell us about the creative process you go through when designing your blankets?
Thank you! It sounds clichéd, but we really do find design inspiration everywhere! In terms of getting the process going, it all depends on where we are and what we are up to when we come around to designing. It might be as simple as a photograph, a dress on the catwalk, a beautiful set of floor tiles… we are constantly taking photos and clipping images that catch our eye – our shared inspiration folder is overflowing! After a brutal culling process, we start to develop mood boards and colour palettes for that particular season. We try to get away together and take trips we know are going to get our creative sides flowing, but in all honesty, some of our best design work has been done when we’ve stuck at home with the kids screaming around. We are learning to take in inspiration whenever we can – and then channel that into designs when we’re ready.

Where are your products made and what are the blankets made from to make them so gorgeous and soft?
We manufacture all of our products in India. The team we work with to create our blankets is so incredibly talented. They focus only on knitting, so they really know what they’re doing. Kate & Kate blankets are knitted using 100% cotton, all of which is OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 certified, which basically means that our end products are free from any harmful substances. The wonderfully soft end result is a combination of both the high quality raw materials used and they way in which they are knitted.

What does a typical day involve for you?
Our days are always busy and always a bit of a juggle! I like to do the school/kindy drop off before settling into work around 9.30am. Like anyone with their own business, you become a jack of all trades. We spend our days liaising with our manufactures, visiting our retailers and working to ensure their needs are met, processing orders, managing our warehouse, picking/packing, chatting with the media and distributing samples for shoots, logging inspiration and sketching designs – the list goes on. At some point late afternoon, we turn back into mothers for a few hours before putting our business hats back on for our nightly work session. It’s hectic but I don’t think either of us would have it any other way.

What can we expect next for Kate & Kate?
We are in the process of launching our Summer 15/16 “The Great Escape” which is by far our most adventurous collection to date. Cotton blankets, linen throws, napery & cushions, bath sheets, hand towels and beach towels. We can’t wait to see these on the shelves in the coming weeks. From there, we are working on finalising our Winter 16 collection, which will hopefully include some beautiful rugs and alpaca blankets. In terms of big picture, we will be concentrating on taking our brand overseas, particularly to the US. This is the next big step for our brand… we are just preparing ourselves to jump right in!

Who are your favourite designers/bloggers/artists for inspiration at the moment?
We are both adore with Celine, Jill Sander, Chloe – locally, we are crushing on all things Ellery. And Bassike, always Bassike. Blogs we love include The Grace Tales, such a simple but brilliant idea, shooting stylish mums – and the interviews are always fantastic, very honest. Nadia Fairfax and Lindy Klim have killer style. We have a really varied attraction to different artists and styles – I recently bought my second piece by Noah Taylor, which is incredibly dark but so striking. And we both love photography – Kate just purchased a piece by Brooke Holm which is just incredible.

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Kate & Kate...