MIKA & MILO is a multi-award-winning Scottish childrenswear brand specialising in timeless, planet-friendly knitwear. CWB’s Laura Turner speaks to founder Aiko Stevenson to learn more about the brand and its rich history.
Laura Turner: What’s the heritage behind MIKA & MILO?
Aiko Stevenson: We are a fourth-generation Scottish textile company which has been involved in the woollen trade for over a century. It all started with my great-grandfather, Herbert Stevenson, who had a mill producing his own brand of Scottish tweeds on the outskirts of Edinburgh. By the time my father joined the team, he added cashmere into the mix. In the past, the world’s finest cashmere came from Scotland. Today it mainly comes from the blustery plains of Inner Mongolia, where the frigid winter cold helps the goats to grow a fine inner coat that produces the most delicious, butter-soft cashmere jumpers. My dad first went to Inner Mongolia over 45 years ago, and we have been working with the same cashmere partners ever since.
LT: When was MIKA & MILO introduced?
AS: MIKA & MILO, our kidswear offering, came along much later when I was pregnant with my second child Milo. I struggled to find the perfect cashmere blanket, finding them either too small or too thin. What began as a simple desire to make baby blankets gradually evolved into a full kids’ collection. Although we started as a 100% pure cashmere offering, after having two very mucky pups of our own, we appreciated the importance of machine-washable clothing. We have now moved into a hard-wearing everyday collection, made up of a lovely blend of GOTS-certified organic cotton with just a dash of cashmere for extra softness. After all, the magic of childhood just shoots by, and we want kids to embrace all its joyful, messy chaos without any of the fuss. After a hard day of play, simply pop your jumper into the wash on a delicate cycle.
LT: What does the collection comprise?
AS: We only offer one collection a year, as our organic cotton/cashmere range is fairly seasonless, covering the coolness of both spring and autumn and the bitter coldness of winter. We start at 0-3 months and go up to 10-12 years. As our kids grow older, our range grows up with them. Mika is currently nine years old and Milo is seven. We have a few core designs that we offer every year in new colourways, including our bestselling Lightning, Striped Rocket, Angel and Chestnut jumpers. This year, we are adding some super sweet pencil skirts to match our new range of jumpers. We love using the jacquard technique, as it makes the design very crisp whilst also making the jumper lovely and thick. My kids especially love wearing their jumpers whilst skiing, as they are nice and warm and do not pill against their ski jackets.
LT: What inspires your designs?
AS: Our main starting point is always quality, as it doesn’t matter how good your design is if the quality is weak. We have been working with the same factory in Inner Mongolia since the beginning, as we just love its quality. In fact, we have never had a single return. We did sample a little bit with a factory in India but found that the quality was terribly inconsistent. Although it was cheaper, we did not want to take the risk of going to production and letting down all our lovely stockists. Regarding design, we don’t follow too many fashion trends. Our pieces are meant to be fairly timeless, so they can be passed down through the sibling, cousin and friend pipeline. I love the idea of my kids handing down some of their most treasured pieces to their children; there is something so precious about family heirlooms. We are a huge fan of simplicity whilst also loving prints of any description, and we tend to use only a few colours to show off a design. After all, wasn’t it Coco Chanel who said that simplicity is the ultimate form of elegance or words to that effect? Some of our boys’ designs are a bit bolder, featuring lightning bolts in either a tomato red or a luminous lime, with fun racing stripes down the arms. My son Milo loves our revamped striped Rocket and Ziggy jumper, which are both coming out for a/w 25. My daughter Mika loves the more subtle, girly designs, including our Chestnut, Snowflake and Kissy Face series in both bubblegum and a dreamy pink calico. Creatively, whilst I typically design what I like, my kids are very much the test bed for all our designs, sizing and materials.
LT: How important is sustainability to you?
AS: Sustainability lies at the heart of what we do. I used to be a broadcast journalist with the BBC, CNN, CNBC and Time, and later moved into contributing to the Huffington Post on climate change and how it intersects with politics. I am a firm believer in top-down change, whereby governments need to replace dirty energy options with greener ones, as people need to just get on with their lives. I was heavily pregnant with Mika when the Paris climate pact was signed at the end of 2015 and felt hopeful that our daughter would be born into a more positive world. However, with the advent of Trump 2.0 and the ongoing cost of living crisis, things have become rather challenging, with the climate playing third fiddle yet again. I can but reiterate the importance of top-down change: we need to make the green options readily available and affordable whilst stamping out the dirty ones. For fashion, perhaps it is more complicated, as the more affordable option tends to be the most ruinous fast-fashion one. And, of course, it is so much harder amidst the ongoing cost of living crisis we all find ourselves trapped in. Although we at MIKA & MILO could turn our back on our values and offer the cheapest synthetic materials to compete with the mass market, as parents of two small children whose futures we worry about, it is not something we are willing to do. So, we continue to work with GOTS-certified organic cotton with a dash of cashmere and explore other organic options. Although MIKA & MILO itself is not yet GOTS-certified, our yarn supplier very much is. This means that the yarn we use is 95% certified organic, so you can feel good about each jumper you get from us: it has not hurt our lovely friends the bees, the soil it was grown in, nor the farmers who grew it and their waterways. Plus, it is a lovely soft, safe option for your kids. That makes it a win-win-win, right? We also plant trees every month with the International Tree Foundation and have been doing so for several years now. Before that, we planted forests with One Tree Planted, so we are very much committed to ensuring the livelihoods of our tall-wooded friends, which are not only majestically beautiful but are wonderful carbon emission absorbers, helping to keep our planet lovely and cool for all future generations. After all, there is no Planet B, regardless of what Elon Musk may say. Surely our children and the Earth which they will inherit deserve only the best?
LT: What are your wholesale plans?
AS: We haven’t explored wholesale in the UK that much, which may sound odd given that we are originally from the UK. We are currently based in Hong Kong and for some bizarre reason, we mainly sell in the US to both consumers and retailers alike. We have won five Junior Design Awards in the UK, including Best Children’s Eco Brand twice; Best International Fashion Newcomer: Silver; Best Children’s Knitwear Collection: Gold; Best Children’s Fashion Brand: Gold; and Best Children’s Eco Brand: Gold and Silver. Of course, we would love to push into the UK market, and will be attending Fuse Communication’s press day in May.
LT: What are the short and long-term plans for the brand?
AS: We are currently working on costings so that we can improve our prices for consumers and their little ones. We don’t want to be an ivory tower brand, yet we are certainly not embracing fast fashion, so it is about finding that sweet middle ground. We are also exploring other organic materials that we can move into.
LT: How can retailers get more information?
AS: If anyone wants to get in touch, they can contact us either through our website or shoot us an email at aiko@mika-milo.com.