We spoke to Vinay Diddee, a textile designer by training, and the co-creator of Little Latitude – a brand that produces toys, books and more for children. Vinay is a self-taught textile and apparel designer who has worked with several high-end fashion brands in Europe and Australia providing them an expertise in product development and sourcing. Among the various things he has done professionally, are a 4 year stint at Channel [V] as Head Marketing Operations and documentary filmmaking.

His wife and business partner, Neha Vasant-Diddee is a ‘Street’ photographer by profession. She is a graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. A large part of her last 12 years have been dedicated to working with the National Geographic Magazine in the area of Photo Research. She has extensively travelled and worked with photographers like Michael Yamashita, Steve McCurry, William Albert Allard, Frans Lanting, and Bob Sacha to name a few.

Here is the story of Little Latitude…

The first book in the series ‘The World of Anahi & Vir’ – If there was one thing I could be

How did Little Latitude begin?

We created ‘Little Latitude’ together a little over 3 years ago. Inspired by our children, Anahi and Vir, and a general lack of sensitive and designed products, we started the journey by commissioning a set of 3 picture books. The idea was simple – to introduce children to birds, animals and marine creatures. With this started the series, ‘The World of Anahi & Vir’. We currently have 4 titles in this series.

We have added a line of organic wooden toys to the ‘Little Latitude’ brand that have been designed and part-made by me. They have components in vegetable dyed lacware made by artisans from Channapatnam. We polish and treat the wood with our in-house organic beeswax polish made from beeswax, jojoba and ylang ylang oils. We only used steamed beechwood for our toys, to make them chemical free and child safe. We are extending our range to stationery, apparel, bed-linen and bit of room decor. Our product range is limited for children up to the age of 10 years.

If there was one place I could be, the second book in the series

If I lived in a tree house, the third in the series

Tell us about the series of books you are currently publishing. How did your collaboration with the illustrator, Prashant Miranda, begin?

‘The World of Anahi & Vir’ is a series that started Little Latitude and is inspired by the lives of our children Anahi & Vir – their questions, experiences, interests, emotions, curiosity etc. This was wonderfully brought to life in verse by Kalpana Subramanian and watercolours by Prashant Miranda. Prashant is an integral part of this journey as he brings them to life as characters in the books. He has a special connect with them and in our new book ‘What can you do with Red, Yellow and Blue?’ he himself appears as a character who introduces Anahi and Vir to the wonderful world of colour. The book is written in verse by American writer Arielle North Olson, who works with us both as an author as well as an editor.

The book will be out in the first week of November. We have a short film we will release a couple of days before the book release. It is a film that introduces this book and Prashant Miranda talks about the process, himself as a character in the book, his relationship with Anahi and Vir.

Illustration by Prashant Miranda  for an upcoming book in the series

Where are your products available?

Our books and toys are available in design-led stores across the country like Moonriver (New Delhi), Filter (Mumbai), Plantation House (Bangalore & Hyderabad), Grasshopper (Bangalore), People Tree (New Delhi & Goa), The Paperboat Collective (Goa) and several others listed on our website. These are also available in bookstores like The Lightroom Bookstore (Bangalore). It was never our intention to be available only in design-led stores. A combination of circumstances ranging from distribution/ payment nightmares and product placement/ visibility/ understanding made us choose an alternate distribution strategy.

Internationally our books are available in stores across the US and Singapore. We also retail online on our web store at www.littlelatitude.com. We have shipped from our site to all corners of India and about 21 counties worldwide. We are also available online on www.tadpolestore.com in India, www.babybaazaar.com in the US.

Toys from Little Latitude

To know more about Little Latitude and sift through their collection, click here.escort service sitesмикрозаймы в новокузнецке средства напрокатперехват трафика в сетикак удалить спрашивай ру в контактевзломать аккаунт одноклассниковaircrack ng скачатьпрограмма для аск фм анти аноним