Sarah’s Silks was born through the magic of play.
When Sarah was little, her mother made her her first handmade dress-up pieces.
This never stopped, and through this love of creation and play, Sarah developed this business.
By providing children with open-ended toys that allow for endless possibilities and storytelling adventures, Sarah’s Silks encourages kids to explore their creativity, develop social skills, and engage in cooperative play.
After 30 years of family devotion, hard work, and several generations, Sarah’s Silks is now an international brand, but the core of the business is all about what the children want.
With a focus on quality, creativity, and sustainability, Sarah’s Silks continues to inspire children to dream, create, and play in a world full of endless possibilities!
We speak to Sarah herself about her business:
How did you start Sarah’s Silks? Where and when?
I started Sarah’s Silks 30 years ago in our home in Sonoma County, California, by dyeing some silk for my children to use for play.
They, and the neighbourhood children, used them for playing every day, making them into capes, building forts, feeding their toy animals Playsilk grass – they came up with new ideas every day!
I saw that they would be good for all children, so I started selling them to shops, and soon, we were selling them to stores all over the world.
How big is the team, and what’s everyone’s role?
Our core team is about 20, with extra help during peak times, as we get very busy! Our core team includes two of my sons and their partners.
They run our website, create the visual content, manage our warehouse operations, and participate in new product development.
We have a wonderful in-house artist and design team, and we also collaborate with my favorite artists from time to time on special collections.
What are Sarah’s Silks values?
Our values are to create open-ended toys that inspire imaginative play and are easy on the earth.
I have always designed each toy with three things in mind:
Are they open-ended (would children use them for many different things)?
Do they inspire the imagination (are they beautiful)?
Are they made of natural, sustainable (and not itchy) materials?
What’s your inspiration when designing? How do you apply it?
My inspiration comes from children and nature. I love to see how children play with our toys and watch to find out what other simple props they might need in their pretend worlds.
Colours in nature bring me much joy and inspire our seasonal collections.
What exciting projects/collaborations/news/do you have coming up?
This summer, we are bringing out three exciting new collections: Dinosaurs, Space, and Circus!
New collections include silk dress-up pieces, wooden toys, playsilks, and sometimes special artist collaborations!
From building forts and castles to pretending to be magical creatures or brave knights, the toys from Sarah’s Silks create a world where imagination knows no bounds!
Enter in this magic world here
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