About us
If your 12 year old (or younger child) needs a wardrobe update, look up Rachele in her delightful shop just off Via del Pellegrino. With everything from woolly hats and mitts to romper suits and jackets, all brightly coloured and all handmade, this sort of shop is a dying breed. Most items are around the €40 to €60 mark.
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Written by Katrine Kierkegaard
Rachele handmade kidswear is established in 1998.
The founder Rachele is born in Sweden, but has lived 34 years of her life in Italy.
Her passion for design and sewing is born out of and inspired by the Swedish crafts tradition in all its forms. Handicraft is used as a learning tool and pastime for young children in many families. School also gives them the opportunity to try their hand at various techniques, including textile- wood- and metalwork.
Sewing becomes her passion, but in the early days she doesn't know how to put it to use. During adolescence she designs and makes her own wear, creating an individual style and personality.
In Rome during the 80s, Rachele studies for three years at an academy of design, cutting and sewing. At the same time she begins to create garments for friends, over time building a small and faithful clientele.
In 1995 her little Sarah is born and everything changes. As a matter of course she starts to make clothes for the baby girl, discovering a world where she is free to create without having to follow the current fashion. She creates her very own style and the line is born that she is still pursuing today.
In 1998 she opens her shop in central Rome, choosing a small street off the beaten track to keep costs down. Craft needs time. In order to survive it needs a clientele, but to remain true craft, with everything made by hand, it cannot be produced for the masses. This is the difficult balancing act.
Luckily, during these years many customers have found her. Being located in such a famous city, she now has an international clientele, which lets her continue with her passion.
Here Rachele offers you a small part of her latest creations. She hopes you will like them.
She comments:
"Making ends meet doing a craft is not easy. You must learn to get by with little. But it is a great privilege to be able to work with something you love. I couldn't do without it. And the person who chooses to buy helps the craft survive."
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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It feels like entering Pippi Longstocking's house every time I visit Rakel Fåhraeus, Rachele to her customers, Swedish, founder of a small shop-atelier in the heart of Rome.
I am greeted by her usual laughter (she is not a very Nordic personality, which may be the reason for her one-way trip from Sweden to Italy almost 31 years ago) and we are ready for yet another happy and colourful day.
Rachele is my favourite kidswear designer - always crossing over between two cultures. You realize that her fantastic garments are inspired by her country of origin, Sweden - it is obvious. But she was trained in design, cutting and sewing here in Italy, and this also contributes.
And the result? Clothes that make you regret that you no longer are a kid.
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Published in Pralin Dalademokraten on the ....
After 35 years in Italy the kidswear designer from Falun, Sweden feels at home in the the chaotic bustle of Rome
- Once I may have dreamt about being the great designer who gets to decide how the world will look, but these days I'm just happy that my hobby is my job. I get to work with my hands. It's creative and fun and I am my own boss, says Rakel Fåhraeus.
On a small back street in Rome is the shop Rachele Kidswear, where the Swedish designer has been selling childrens' clothing of her own making since 1998. Today she is working on some hats, but takes time off to greet a couple of German customers entering the shop.
- The shop is a bit off the beaten track, but people somehow manage to find it anyway. Earlier my customers were mainly Italian, but that changed with the financial crisis. I have many regular customers from all over the world, mostly people with money to spend. They like that my things are unique and not to be found anywhere else, she says.
Rakel's childrens' clothes are inspired by her Swedish background. Most of the garments have an early 20th century look, while others look like something Pippi Longstockings might wear.
- It's completely different from the traditional Italian style. I make comfortable, practical, joyful and fun garments in natural materials. Some Italians just don't get it, but others think it's enjoyable, she says.
Rakel lived in Italy from the age of six to nine, when her family moved to the town of Falun in Sweden. When she was 18 she returned on her own, and has been living in Rome since then. She has an Italian husband and in-laws, and a daughter, Sarah, 24, who feels mostly Italian. As does Rakel.
- I somehow got my identity during my childhood here, and back in Sweden I felt that I didn't fit in. I was always longing to go back to Italy to the climate, the contact with people and the bustle. Sweden felt colder, and not just literally. I enjoy the pace and the chaos here, she says.
Even though she loves Italy she has no illusions about the way the country works. Rakel sighs when she elaborates on the painstaking process of opening her shop 20 years ago.
- Red tape everywhere! In Sweden you can buy a house like a loaf of bread in the supermarket. Here it can take up to a year before everything is solved. I was always going to this or that office with some papers, or an approval stamp might be missing, or inspectors showed up and always found some fault that had to be be fixed. On the other hand it's not uncommon for officials to turn a blind eye, so in that way it's a bit more flexible. You can always find a solution.
It is obvious which country Rakel prefers, but her daughter Sarah finds it hard to understand why her mother chose to leave wonderful Sweden, where she and her family go each winter and summer.
- She probably thinks I'm an idiot since I moved to this crazy country. Sweden to her is all comfort and welfare. But she is born here and knows how to cut through all the red tape. She's been learning that since she was a child, Rakel says with pride.
Twice a year she visits her parents in Sweden, where she enjoys peace and quiet and tasty home cooking such as the local hash browns and her father's gravlax.
- We always have fermented herring for dinner one night, and on another occasion shrimps. My parents have been wonderfully supportive all these years, says Rakel. But she admits that she soon begins to long for Italy.
- It's nice to be able to relax, but after a while it gets almost too quiet. You start to ponder on life, whereas in Rome you never really have time for that. So when I've rested for a while I want to return to Italy and its chaos. I think I'm meant to be here.
Name: Rakel Fåhraeus
Age: 55
From: Born in Överkalix, Sweden, grew up in Rome and Falun
Occupation: Runs the shop Rachele Kidswear selling garments of her own design
Domiciled: In Cerveteri, an old Etruscan town by the sea 25 miles to the north of Rome
Family: Husband Adamo, daughter Sarah, 24. Parents in Falun, Sweden, a brother, Jonas, in Stockholm, and a sister, Gabriella, in Svärdsjö.
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THE CIVILIZED SHOPPER’S GUIDE TO ROME Pamela Keech & Magaret A. Brucia
With this discriminating book as a guide, visitors will find themselves strolling down cobblestone that only native Romans know well. Nine walks direct shoppers to unique stores that uphold Italian standards of quality, fine craftsmanship, and creativity. The walks also include cultural and historical information as well as dining recommendations.
TUCKED AWAY IN A QUIET, WINDING “VICOLO” (ALLEWAY), THIS LITTLE BOUTIQUE CARRIES clothing for infants, babies, and young children from newborns to eight-year-olds. Expect to find the Swedish proprietor and designer at her sewing machine, pieces of brightly colored fabrics strewn helter-skelter on the floor. Cheerful, practical clothing lines the walls: jumpers, playsuits, jackets, pants, and sweaters as well as imaginative hats that resemble strawberries and ladybugs. Everything is made from natural fibers, with the exception of fleece jacket. In European clothing stores children’s clothes are sized by height in centimeters.