AT HOME WITH...
Lauren Parisotto
On maternity leave from a fashion buying job, Canadian-born Aucklander Lauren Parisotto saw a gap in the market for nostalgic, playful and colourful surf-style clothes for children, so she founded her own company, Kokomo. Parisotto, 31, lives in an old villa in Mt Albert with husband Cameron Curran, and daughter, Poppy, 1.
LAUREN: I’m from Vancouver, Canada, originally. I met Cam in London and got brought back here, as you do. We’ve been together for a little more than seven years and lived in New Zealand for six years.
We did weigh up moving to Vancouver, but New Zealand felt exciting to us at the time. Cam had lived in Vancouver before London for five years, a crazy coincidence, but we didn’t know each other there.
We bought this house and moved in four years ago. We started renovating it straight off the bat and we’re still going. It’s a villa, more than 100 years old. The majority of the inside is finished, and we’re working on the exterior.
I find Auckland a really beautiful place and the outdoor lifestyle is amazing for bringing up kids, the beaches … getting back to nature after living in London.
Cam grew up in Howick, and has family all around New Zealand.
I haven’t taken Poppy back to Vancouver, but hopefully in the near future. We just took her to Hawaii in October to see everyone; it’s pretty much halfway.
The homes here are quite different to Vancouver homes. This one had been last renovated in the 60s or 70s and had lowered ceilings. We didn’t know what was underneath.
We found all the original architraves, ceiling roses, and original hardwood floors underneath that we’ve polished.
We’ve tried to keep a lot of that character but the type of furniture style we like is mid-century, so we’ve brought that in too.
It was my first time renovating, and our first home too.
We like Mt Albert. We’ve got the mountain really close, such a nice place to walk. There are other parks nearby, and a couple of good cafes. We like walking into Pt Chevalier and going to Daily Bread. They have a wood cart there that Poppy just loves.
When we started the business [Kokomo], Poppy was still a baby so it’s fully run from home. We work around nap times and early bedtimes. We’ve been lucky we’ve had the space to do that: we just grab all of the samples, lay them out, rack them up if we can and take over the spaces; our lounge, kitchen, whatever.
Cam works full time as a property development manager for an Auckland company. I work part time as a wholesale brand manager, also in the fashion industry.
Poppy is so sweet: she goes to daycare four days a week. She’s a happy, social toddler.
The business has been good. It’s been a challenge working it around a baby to start but it’s so rewarding. Kids love our graphics and colours because they’re bright and colourful, with illustrations and stripes.
I do all the designing of the style, shapes and colour palettes, and I have a friend who is an illustrator who does the graphics.
It’s all unisex. That’s part of our sustainability: we want it suitable for hand-me-downs. From our perspective, that’s about versatility and the easiness. Lots of my friends are mums, and we’ve shared kids’ clothes.
We sell online and through our Instagram and in one shop, Dear Lily in Invercargill. We’ve just confirmed our second stockist, online retailer Little Bambinos.
I essentially look after the design and production, PR and marketing side, and Cameron looks after the accounts and operations side; for example, he did our trademarking.
It’s been a cool business to create together. It has nostalgic childhood feel for us: Cam was super into skateboarding and surfing when he was younger so we take inspiration from the skate scene, and the California surf scene.
He still does those things – but maybe not with the agility he once had.