We turned 20 and we had a PAAAAAAAARTY!

Twenty years of colour and childhood magic - what a milestone! To celebrate, Oobi hosted a joyful birthday event filled with beautiful details, incredible partners, and the most special community. From the cake to the balloons down to the tiniest details, every moment was thoughtfully brought to life and we’re so excited to share it with you.

 

A Milestone Worth Celebrating

Twenty years ago I took a collection of hand-printed fabrics to the Glebe markets and hoped for the best. I had no idea that two decades later I'd be standing in a room full of colour and balloons and children in tutus, watching a little girl carefully distribute fairy wands from a basket with the focused energy of someone running a very important operation.

But here we are.

Oobi is twenty. And we had a party.

The Dreamiest Birthday Setup

Every detail of the event reflected Oobi’s signature style - colourful, whimsical, and full of heart. We'd like to thank our event partners who made it all the more beautiful and special.

🎂 The Cake 

Birgitta's Kitchen made us the most perfect cake I have ever seen in my life. White fondant, red apples, red dots scattered everywhere exactly like the fabric I've been printing for years. It was so Oobi it was almost surreal. I stood there looking at it thinking, that's it. That's the whole brand in cake form.

It lasted about twelve minutes once the kids spotted it.

Thank you @birgittaskitchen

🎈 The Balloons

I am a person who believes strongly in riots of colour and Bondi Road Balloons delivered in spectacular fashion. Every colour Oobi has ever loved, climbing the wall beside a white arch with our logo on it and a giant red number 20 that the children immediately tried to climb through. They succeeded. Nobody was surprised.

Thank you @bondi_road_balloons - and also specifically to the amazing Lauren who knew that I didn’t really want “just pink and red” but that we needed the RAINBOW.

🏡 The Venue

Power Parlour and Dance Baby Sydney gave us a beautiful, light-filled space with mirrors and a gorgeous wooden floor and room for everyone to move and be loud and feel at home. Which they did. Very much.

Also, what a fun and fantastic experience, mums, dads, kids and bubs (and me) dancing, getting in some moves without feeling like you’re doing boring exercise, bonding, perfect.

Thank you @powerparlour @dancebaby_syd

 

💃 The People

This is the part I really want to talk about.

I've been doing this long enough to know that the clothes are really just the beginning of it. What Oobi has always been, underneath the hand-printed cotton and the tulle and the cardigans that mums keep buying in every new colourway, is a community. Families who've been with us since the first collection. Mums who bought a dress for their daughter's second birthday and came back for her fifth and her eighth. Kids who grew up in Oobi and are now, somewhat terrifyingly, too old for it.

Those are the people who showed up on the day. And they brought their kids, who ran around the room with fairy wands and tried on everything on the rack and generally made the afternoon feel exactly like it should.

There was a tiny boy in a Snackman tee who had clearly decided this was his moment and he was not wrong. There was a dad holding his little girl in the Indigo Bloom tutu, both of them with huge smiles which is honestly the best kind of photo. There were mums sitting on the floor with their kids because the afternoon was good enough to sit on the floor for. And of course, we didn’t have enough chairs and didn’t expect so many people so that was wonderful! 

And there was me, at the clothing rack, in the heart shirt I made especially for the day, absolutely in my element.

Twenty years of Oobi is really a story about the people who kept showing up. This party was my way of saying thank you for that. Properly.

 

What's Next

I'm not done. Not even close.

There are new collections in the works and new prints being designed and the same team in Jaipur who has been hand-printing with me for twenty years still doing work that makes me catch my breath when I see it. The next twenty years starts now and I'm very glad you're here for it.

Come and see what's new: Shop Dresses

Read more about how this whole thing started: About Oobi