Apr 21, 2017

reinventing the kids slipper // joe cooke, lead designer

We catch up with our lead designer, Joe Cooke, about his inspiration when designing mahabis, and more recently, the mahabis kids range. Read on to find out how comfort and the importance of downtime have led to the creation of our timeless mahabis slipper.

"mahabis are created to help to give you space, a place for downtime, free from distractions and we wanted to facilitate this by just removing anything else that is unnecessary. How the products visually look is a crucial part in achieving that. Minimalism, simplicity and functionality are the central principles and they have definitely had an impact in forming the minimal, timeless design of our products and the overall aesthetic."

"From day one, we'd designed mahabis as unisex slippers, to allow the mahabis experience to be enjoyed regardless of demographic. Hence, we followed the same rationale when creating mahabis kids. It’s an experience to be shared and therefore, there is no-one more important to share the feeling of home with than your kids. For this product, we wanted to combine the protection of home with the freedom of play, whilst remaining an extension of the mahabis classic and summer slippers.

reinventing the kids slipper

The design maintains the key features of the adults range to translate the quality to that of kids, therefore the materials and aesthetic are the same. But for kids mahabis, the sole is fixed. We know the difficulty sometimes in getting kids to coordinate! So we just wanted to make the mahabis kids effortless and instinctive for them to use.

Comfort was the most influential consideration whilst creating mahabis kids. When we feel comfortable, we feel the protection and freedom that liberates us, but keeps us secure at the same time. More importantly, when our kids feel comfortable, we do. So, we maintained many signature features of our adult slipper, but also focused intently on the delicate fitting that is unique to a child's foot. It had to be simple to put on; to not hinder the excitement to play, and to not obstruct the freedom during use.

As a result, we made many small tweaks to the fit of the kids slippers. We’re building timeless products to be treasured and that has been in the forefront of our mind whilst designing and creating them. Sometimes we questioned whether the minutiae would make a noticeable difference, but we knew that by improving seemingly small aspects, we could turn a mundane experience into a treasured one. On one occasion during the design process, we gave a prototype to a 4 year old girl to test, and when we saw the joy on her face, we knew it was right."

Check out the mahabis slippers here.