Rising Stars: Plumeti Rain
While northern Europe looks through its wet windows dreaming of a few seconds of sun, Laura Peña sits at her computer wishing it would rain.
Laura and her partner Pablo Ortiz are the founders of Plumeti Rain, a name chosen by Laura to reflect her recognition that the future is in the international markets, where an English name helps, but also the fact that, having spent a lot of time in the UK, she finds that British weather appeals to her character and inspires her creativity.
And creativity is important for Plumeti Rain, a Valencian company that is making a mark in the highly competitive world of children’s clothing.
Laura trained as a lawyer, but at the end of her degree realised that she was more attracted to a creative career and to being her own boss, and so she started studying in a design school before switching to a Master’s course more in line with her ambitions.
During this highly specialised degree she studied the problems of babies’ skin and the use of intelligent fabrics in baby clothes in order to avoid dermatological problems. From here grew the idea of creating a brand of baby and children’s clothes based primarily on their wellbeing without neglecting design aspects. That’s why only natural fibers such as cotton, silk, linen and viscose are used by Plumeti Rain.
Laura defines her style as romantic simplicity, with clothes made of light fabrics that allow children to do what they do best: running, dancing, jumping and crawling.
After launching the company in February 2014, Laura and Pablo, a professional photographer with a studio at Avenida Primado Reig 68, entered into a phase that Laura described as =three months of madness=. To get themselves known they visited important trade fairs in London (where Laura found both abundant rain and important contacts in the promising markets of Saudi Arabia and New York), as well as Florence and Madrid.
Their designs found a niche in the market, so much so that they won an award in London, the prestigious ‘Rising Star’ award, selected by trade journalists and buyers. Even more important, they found their first buyers, such as the British shopping chain ‘Your Children’s Wardrobe’, which now stocks baby and children’s clothes designed by Laura, commecialised by Pablo and manufactured not in Asia but in the province of Alicante.
After those three months of madness the future beckons. In 2015 they intend to take their autumn and winter collections to London and Madrid, and in 2016 to Paris.
With 80 original models already available Laura, an ex-student of Ramón Llull High School, and Pablo, who attended the Maria Auxiliadora school, are not yet singing in the rain, but they are looking forward to a brighter future, and wishing it would rain.
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