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La Rioja is best known as one of Spain’s biggest wine-producing regions. But it is also home to the fun-loving kidswear of Tuc Tuc. The Spanish brand’s creative clothes and baby accessories, with their bright colours and lively patterns, have struck a chord among consumers everywhere. Tuc Tuc’s general manager Miguel Cadarso talks with Fashionfromspain.com about how it all s, its global ambitions and imminent plans:

How did it all start and when?
Tuc Tuc was created in 1994, by designer Marisa Sotés. Highly creative and with a restless spirit, she was one of the founding partners and currently heads up the design department. We’re a family firm.

Why kidswear? Was Sotés already involved in fashion?
She’s always been passionate about design and started out in children’s interiors accessories. She was very familiar with the children’s products business and decided to take it one step further. That’s when she began to design garments and fashion accessories. Now we have different collections and aim to cover every aspect of a child’s life.

What was the business like in the beginning?
It all began in a small interiors shop of no more 30sq m. In 1995, we moved into a 400sq m industrial warehouse. In the same year, the Tuc Tuc brand was created and our collections went on show at the FIMI tradeshow in Valencia for the first time. Once we began to produce fashion collections, we had to move again, this time to 2,000sq m premises. And in February 2006, we ended up in our current location on the Lardero industrial estate, near Logroño, La Rioja. There, we have a state-of-the-art logistics service with the latest-generation robot which operates an automatic warehouse with capacity for 4,050 boxes. That means we can respond rapidly and effectively to any need in the orders system.

How many staff do you now employ?
We now have 69 on staff. But we also create about 200 indirect jobs. What is more, 85% of the workforce is female, so we’re particularly attentive to reconciling work and family life.

How big is your creative team?
The design department, which Sotés heads, is the cornerstone of Tuc Tuc. It’s based in Barcelona and includes seven fashion designers, graphics designers and pattern designers. Its job is to take care of the design, prints and illustrations of every collection and to create a specific line each season. Tuc Tuc’s collections use a wide variety of fabrics designed and created exclusively by and for us. However, although we pay attention to trends, Tuc Tuc seeks to combine them with its own ideas, to create something that will surprise and set it part from the rest of the kidswear market.

“Tuc Tuc invents new prints every season. They are part of our identity”

Where does the name “Tuc Tuc” come from?
It was from a trip Sotés made to Thailand. The name they use for their unusual taxis reminded her of the sound babies make when they take their first steps.