The Royal Horticultural Society has revealed a new partnership with nursery product specialist Roma, which will see the launch of a wide range of products from strollers and travel systems to children’s toys and ride on boards.
The Roma x RHS collection is inspired by nature, encouraging families to go outdoors and enjoy the world around them.
For the collaboration, Roma will develop a collection of baby products and toys using the RHS logo on both the products and packaging, as well as RHS-supplied designs for the colour fabric elements of the products.
PreschoolNews.net caught up with Molly Francis Coleman, md at Roma Prams, and Cathy Snow, RHS licensing manager, to find out more on the collaboration.
Firstly, why is the collaboration with Roma such a good fit for the RHS?
Cathy Snow: “We have long believed that a nursery products partnership would be an ideal venture for us, connecting in a new way with our RHS members and audience – and particularly parents, grandparents and carers.
Having decided to pursue this venture, Roma is the ideal partner for us. It’s an award-winning designer and manufacturer of a wide range of nursery products. Importantly too, it aims to encourage families to go outdoors and enjoy the world around them, which is core to the RHS message as well.
This link to families and the great outdoors can be seen among our visitors to the RHS gardens: you can see a lot of mums and families with strollers – and grandparents visiting with grandchildren. That is why we thought strollers – and particularly those featuring nature-inspired accessories – would resonate well with our existing audience, as well as opening doors to new areas of retail we hadn’t explored in depth before.
We were also delighted when Roma suggested the ‘mini me’ ranges of toy-sized prams and strollers for children that would co-ordinate with the full-sized range. This extends the natural world into the activity-based play area, which again broke new ground for RHS licensing.”
What will make it stand out at retail?
Molly Francis Coleman: “As well as being robust, practical and affordable, this collection is further enhanced by the RHS-inspired designs of the accessories for the travel systems and double pram: colour packs that contain fabrics for the hood, harness pads and seat liners. We always like to consider our younger audience when developing Roma designs, and using RHS artworks is a great way to inspire children from an early age to embrace the natural world around them.
There’s also the collection’s environmental relevance. At the heart of the collection are our sustainable values. Roma has spent time sourcing recycled materials, including plastics and fabrics, to limit our carbon footprint. We know parents are becoming increasingly conscious of their impact on the wider world, and there are limited options for eco-friendly products that are essential to family life. The fact that we can offer such options to consumers is important in today’s retail environment.”
How will the collection be marketed? Are you planning any special initiatives?
Molly: “The collection will be previewed at the Harrogate International Nursery Fair, attended by retail stores throughout the UK. We will be hosting a very special launch for the public in 2025, with details to be confirmed. Roma is stocked at over 200 retail stores throughout the UK and Europe, so there will be an opportunity for everyone to see the collection.
What was the process from Roma when it came to choosing the designs?
Molly: “It was very much a team effort, with the RHS team sourcing all the drawings we were looking for in the archives and our design people adapting them to our needs.
Our in-house designers visit fairs around the world gathering inspiration for the next range. This year, they attended the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – which was a real hub of creativity! Then the RHS provided its style guides with original drawings from garden designers and artists to be used in the fabric elements of this collection. The final designs are adapted from an array of drawings and brought together with fabulous prints by legendary garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, which make them immediately recognisable as RHS-inspired products.”
How important to the RHS is the sustainability element Molly referred to earlier?
Cathy: “Very important. As part of the RHS Sustainability Strategy, within the decade the RHS aims to become net positive for nature and for people, and to encourage and enable gardeners to do the same. This also applies to our thinking on licensing and selecting the right partners to work with. Sustainability was a key part of the presentation when Roma first spoke to us. A good example is the way you can use the textile elements of this collection. Customers can update these for a second or third child; they don’t need to buy a whole new pram frame. The old textiles can then be recycled.”
Molly: “As a company we always look for ways to do better every year. In 2021, we started our ‘company forest’ with Ecologi, the UK’s leading all-in-one climate platform; this now has 3,500 trees planted to offset our carbon emissions.
We’re aware that due to material availability and factory capabilities, the majority of nursery products are produced in China. We only work with factories that are climate-conscious in their production methods.
We are also doing everything we can to keep carbon emissions per family to a minimum. As Cathy has pointed out, the production of colour packs for our strollers means that we hope families will choose not to replace the pram each time for a new baby, but just update the fabrics. These are all made with recyclable materials, so we know our products won’t stick around in landfill. Similarly with our toys, when a child has outgrown the dolls’ pram, the core materials are recyclable.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Cathy: “The RHS team is super excited about this licence. That’s partly because this is the first time we’ve partnered with a licensee for this type of product but also because of the design flair – we supply the art but Roma then adapts it – and, of course, the strong links to nature. Also we know how important it is for families to spend time together, enjoying outdoor spaces; this licence encourages that. It’s great for health as well as discovery and enriching lives.”
Molly: “We are hugely excited to be working with the RHS. The RHS embodies everything we are looking to achieve in this collection: encouraging families to be eco-conscious and embrace sustainability as a way of life; making choices that support our relationship with nature; experiencing joy in spending time together outdoors.
It’s already a good-looking and eco-conscious range. We’re going to do all we can to further enhance the style and eco-credentials of this partnership in the coming years.”
