Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg of nununu: How Rejecting Conventional Gender Norms and Listening to Your Gut Built a Global Kids Fashion Brand

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, we had the pleasure of interviewing Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg.

Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg are the forward-thinking founders of nununu — a global alternative kids clothing company. After becoming mothers, they were underwhelmed by the traditional babywear options they found on the market. They both wanted to break free from the usual children’s apparel clichés, opting for a clean, minimalist design approach. Most importantly, they wanted their kids to find their own voice, their own style, and their own individuality through their clothes.

While the gender neutral children’s apparel space is so prevalent now, this was not the case back in 2008 when they launched nununu — making Tali and Iris pioneers in their industry.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

As we were both relatively new moms after years of careers as an art director in leading firms (Tali) and a fashion stylist (Iris) we both felt it was time for a change — mainly in our careers but also in terms of filling a void we noticed in the kid’s fashion world, which was so gender-defined. Pink = girls, blue = boys, “cute” prints, and basically just offerings that were not very appealing to our way of thinking and to our aesthetics. Turns out, we were both looking for that “something” that aligned with our personal taste.

As we hardly knew each other, a mutual friend who had heard both of us speaking about this, suggested we meet and discuss. After a year of meeting every day, without any real background in fashion design/production, we started our brand.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Tali: I think our main starting point and philosophy back then and now, has been that we’ve always held a mature attitude towards children, and have always thought about them as equal human beings that just happened to be born after us. These younger people are our future and as such should be treated with the utmost respect.

Iris: Not to mention that from day one, we’ve offered an “equal” option for clothing without differentiation, long before this became trendy. What I am trying to say is that we’ve never labeled what and who we are, we just did it because we thought this was how things are supposed to be. Gladly, more and more people are seeing and understanding this now.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Iris: When we started out, we had literally no idea about, well anything! So we had to learn from the basics, including from our mistakes…One particularly sad mistake was that once we started getting orders, we would insist on packing each item in its own black silk paper.

Tali, laughing: Yes! We had no clue we had to pack each item in its own separate polybag! So we would sit in my living room and pack and pack with this silk paper….

Iris: until one of our shipments got wet, and all the clothes got drenched and had wet black silk paper goo all over them! Needless to say, we found out about polybags!

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Tali: Actually, when we started out, most of the people around us were a bit shocked by our concept, and most of them kept telling us things like “skulls on baby clothes??? Black for kids??? You guys are crazy! This is never going to work!

Iris: At this point we understood that if we continue listening to everyone, we would only be discouraged and start losing our belief in the idea.

Tali: So we stopped listening to everyone. And only listened to our gut and each other and became our own mentors. That being said, it’s not like we do not listen to anyone but ourselves. As the years passed, and nununu has grown — we make it a point to listen and learn from everyone around us… starting from employees to business consultants…the day we think we know everything is the day we will be in deep trouble!

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Iris: Look, when we started nununu, we created a world that was based on something that was so normal and natural to us, we didn’t even consider it an agenda or as something disruptive. It was plain and simple — our way of life and our philosophy. Being “disruptive” was a title that came after, and considered to be revolutionary. For us, it was just our way of life.

I would also say that just because a particular style or practice has been around forever, it doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing. Several age-old ideas are disrupted with a new, better idea. It’s all about the common good, if it elevates society somehow, we think that’s the most important factor.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Trust your gut: People will always have a million different ideas, suggestions, tips and opinions about what it is that you’re doing. And if you don’t believe in your foundations, and your overarching vision, you can lose your way easily. So have faith in yourself and your ideas, no matter what.

Open your mind: Modern business, just like modern life, is very complicated. And we’re always being shown new ideas based on new information. If you don’t keep an open mind and adapt freely to change, you could get left behind.

Don’t be afraid: Courage is the basis under every successful business. You have to be bold and believe in yourself in order to achieve what you want. For us, it’s always been important to be brave and not second guess ourselves when making decisions.

Chase your dreams: We’ve all got just one life, so we all better live it! Creating nununu has been a dream for the both of us — because every single morning we get to wake up knowing we’re doing something we love!

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Great question! I wish we had the answer, but our future is constantly being shaped. We are always thinking about the next surprise, opportunity and journey.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Gender is not a challenge. We’ve never seen it as one, thought about it as one nor acted and created as if it were a challenge. This is how we roll and that’s exactly what nununu is all about and what our message is to the younger generation.

BTW, besides our CEO, Erez Baruch, our HQ team is an all-woman team — it was not intentional, it just happened and we work like badass warriors over here.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Tali: Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura. This book was mind-blowing to me in the way it expresses how little we really need in our lives, materialistically. What we do require is so deep within us and our soul.

We both recently watched “100 Foot Wave” following Garett McNamara’s 10-year journey to conquer the 100 foot tall wave. His journey, dedication, respect to his mission, the sea and his dream was mesmerizing.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Iris: Thanks for the compliment . We think that any sort of idea, dream and wish someone has is literally a realistic possibility that can be achieved. I know it sounds a bit like a cliché, but this would be both of our inspirations for a movement. If we didn’t believe in our ideas, our thoughts, our dreams — and left them as just those, we would never be here. People must dream and believe and do everything possible to make them happen.

Everyone has a flame in them to do something, you must keep nurturing this flame at all times, this is the strength. And when you are connected to your inner flame and your passion, you keep developing and creating. This is something you can’t fake, and we believe that every person has this and just needs to act on it.

We know for a fact, that in our journey, we never stop dreaming, and mostly never stop surrounding ourselves with dreamers and good-hearted dreamers like us.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

To be honest, we don’t think we have one particular quote that sums up our philosophies on life. We learn lessons every single day just by living our lives. And that also sums up our vision for nununu — that every parent and child is different, unique and special; all of us are in a constant state of changing, learning and growing. So we design clothing that allows people to express their individuality, and to help them find their own identity as they navigate through life.

How can our readers follow you online?

nununu Website: https://nununu.com/

Iris: https://instagram.com/iris_adler?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Tali: https://instagram.com/tali_milchberg?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!