Winter Water Factory is always experimenting with new patterns that serve kids’ ever-changing palettes.
There is a holiday gift giving strategy for children known as the four-gift rule. It is not only practical but guards against a little one’s disappointment on Christmas morning.
The rule provides a plan for managing expectations by giving “something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.”
“Something they want” and “something to wear” can be one in the same when it comes to children’s clothing made by Winter Water Factory.
A Brooklyn, New York manufacturer of children’s colorful print apparel, Winter Water Factory makes everything from onesies to dresses and pajamas adorned with prints that kids love to wear.
“If you get the right thing, like if they’re into garbage trucks or cats and dogs, scooters or cars, then I think the kids will get excited,” said Winter Water Factory founder and CEO Stefanie Lynen. “We’ve had prints with all kinds of weird animals, fire trucks, all the things that kids get excited about.
“Recently we are using a lot of fruits and vegetables. Ten years ago, you couldn’t sell a t-shirt with tomatoes on it. Now kids go nuts for tomatoes, cherries, strawberries and all that stuff.”
It’s a bit like the hottest new toy. What’s popular this year, may be passe next season. You just never know.
Lynen is continually experimenting with new print patterns, which appeal to a child’s unique interests. Winter Water Factory’s fabrics come from a Los Angeles mill that takes Lynen’s designs and screen prints them on large rolls of fabric. The fabric is then sent to the company’s Brooklyn factory for cutting, sewing, finishing and, eventually, shipping.
All items manufactured by Winter Water Factory are soft, comfortable jersey knits made of 100% organic cotton. And all but the fabric yarn is American-made.
“It starts with rompers, baby blankets and hats for newborns and goes all the way up to size 10,” said Lynen. “For grown up kids it’s t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, dresses. All the jersey stuff.
“Jersey is a knit fabric as opposed to woven fabric, which is a lot more stiff and has no stretch. We pay a lot of attention to it being comfortable and soft for kids to be able to play in.”
Winter Water Factory had been a side business for Lynen since 2003 while she was working as a design director at Martha Stewart’s merchandising department focusing on crafts, pets and home office. In 2019, Lynen and her husband Todd Warnock took over full-time stewardship of the company and have watched it grow from a wholesale brick-and-mortar supplier into a profitable e-commerce store.
The Winter Water Factory’s 5,000 square-foot building in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn houses 14 employees, nine of whom are sewers. The company prides itself on its eco-friendly, sustainable manufacturing.
“The obvious thing is we are using organic cotton which is farmed without pesticides,” said Lynen. “That was a choice we made early one to not use conventional cotton, which is a very dirty crop and uses a lot of water in the manufacturing process.
“And we avoid plastic. We have no plastic; we ship in paper. Everything is hand packed and wrapped in tissue and it ships out in a paper bag in a paper mailer so that it is fully recyclable.
“And we don’t have tags because those just go in the trash. I hate it when you order something online and it comes in five plastic bags with seven tags and two stickers. It’s like a mountain of garbage just to get the thing that you ordered.”
And, of course, these products have a much less carbon footprint than items manufactured overseas.
Winter Water Factory is an unlikely name for a clothing brand, but it comes from Lynen’s first business idea as a child growing up in Germany. Lynen and her sister gathered snow and put it in a bowl to melt and dubbed it “winter water” in hopes of selling it to their parents.
Well, it was no sale, but the young girls plotted daily on the workings of their “factory” and how they would have to work another shift. The idea fizzled, of course, but the name stuck.
“When I started to think of a name for the company, I said it’s going to have to be Winter Water Factory since it already existed,” said Lynen. “It was making products from natural resources and having a good time doing it. So that made sense to me at the time.”
Growing up in Europe, Lynen went to medical school before she learned of all the career options available to her when she came to New York as part of a biomedical exchange program.
“In our small town in Germany, there were doctors, lawyers and teachers,” said Lynen. “I didn’t know you could make money doing graphic design or product design. I finished medical school, but I knew that becoming a doctor was not for me. I always was doing creative stuff in my spare time but being a doctor was pretty much a 24-hour job where there wasn’t going to be a lot of free time.
“So, when I worked for Martha Stewart in product design, she had this initiative called American Made where she would have a conference once a year and give prizes to the Top 10 American makers. We would go to factories finding glass blowers or old factories making plates or home goods. We would interview them and see who was worthy of a prize. It was a lot of fun.”
Lynen’s American-made manufacturing bona fides may have began at Martha Stewart but they have stayed with her ever since.
“It’s hard making things in America because you want to pay people well and you don’t want to compromise on quality,” said Lynen. “We haven’t raised our prices in a while because we don’t want to exclude people. We don’t want it to get so expensive, so it’s tricky.
“The money stays in the community this way. I think people are slowly realizing how important it is, where you spend your money. You can support what you believe in. You might buy fewer things but you’re getting good quality, and it lasts longer.
“All of our customers say their stuff is handed down through all their kids because you just can’t destroy it. It’s almost bad for us because they don’t buy new, they just keep the same stuff.”
Winter Water Factory apparel for children is priced in the $30 to $60 range. Its apparel is available in about 50 retail stores across the nation and online at www.winterwaterfactory.com.
The Winter Water Factory Black Friday sale begins on Monday and runs through Black Friday. Most items will be 40% off during the sale.
The Alliance for American Manufacturing does not receive a commission from purchases made through the above links, nor was the organization or author paid for favorable coverage.
Labeling Note: This story is intended to highlight companies that support American jobs and that make great products in the United States. We rely on the companies listed to provide accurate information regarding their domestic operations and their products. Each company featured is individually responsible for labeling and advertising their products according to applicable standards, such as the Federal Trade Commission’s “Made in USA” standard or California’s “Made in USA” labeling law. We do not review individual products for compliance or claim that because a company is listed in the guide that their products comply with specific labeling or advertising standards. Our focus is on supporting companies that create American jobs.
For more on the Federal Trade Commission’s standards for “Made in USA” claims and California’s “Made in USA” labeling law, please also read this guest post by Dustin Painter and Kristi Wolff of Kelly Drye & Warren, LLP.