While we all sit and wait for the Butterfly’s new little sister, the highly anticipated Gemini,  to arrive, I invite you to walk down my Beco memory lane with me…

This was Beco’s first BIG trade show in Las Vegas.  Of special interest are the discontinued Obi carriers on the wall, the VERY popular Joshua Butterfly I on the left, and the Avocado Bird on the right!  I love the tiny Echino Dove Mini Becos hanging up on the walls looking like little birds, and the bright color-blocked walls look fantastic!

Walk with me to 2006 when I bought my very first Beco. Back then, the world was a more simple place!  Want a Soft Structured Carrier?  There were really only 4 good options!  Organic versus non-organic?  Nope.  Infant insert, nope.  Integrated seat, foot stirrups, detachable umbrellas, or military grade parachutes?  Nope, nope, nope, hahaaaaa!!!!  These carriers were no muss, no fuss.  Until Beco Baby Carriers changed the world of babywearing and blew the other SSC brands out of the water!  I mean seriously, Beco’s 4th Generation carrier became so popular that a large corporate baby carrier company decided to mark their territory and pulled patent on the poor unsuspecting 4G.

This was my very first Beco ever!  It was the 4th Generation in the Spa print which Gabby had helped fit to Baby#4 and I earlier that day!  He was 3 months old, and I had deliberated over which carrier to buy since he was born.  He was a BIG baby, and that’s when I realized that I would need something more supportive that my ring slings which had worked great with my previous 3 babies!  He actually cried the first time I put him in my new Beco at the Beco Head Quarters, but he quickly learned to love being worn in a SSC, and Baby #4 is still happy to be worn even at 3 1/2 and close to 40 pounds!

I guess Gabby Caperon was no longer just any ol’ WAHM!  If such a large corporate baby carrier company was coming after her, she had earned her title as “superior baby carrier creator,”  but now, she needed a new plan!  With the remaining 4th Generations locked up (wouldn’t you just LOVE to get into THAT warehouse!) Gabby formulated a plan!  Her new Beco Baby Carrier would be so different that the former top dog in the baby carrier industry wouldn’t be able to come after her with their threats, and the babywearers would be forced to try it because it was so new, so different, so revolutionary!!!!

The infant insert was not technically a new concept.  Gabby had discussed the insert with her friend who designed the German Manduca baby carrier, but the Y harness was a new addition that babywearers had never experienced before.  Suddenly with the help of the integrated insert, moms didn’t need to learn to hip scoot, superman toss, or any of the other ridiculously named methods of getting your baby on your back that were part of every babywearers’ skill set.  Now,  you simply buckled baby in and popped on the Beco like a backpack! Anyone can do that!  Plus parents could remove the baby carrier from themselves and re-buckle it on someone else!  This was a fantastic new concept that rocked the babywearing world and made the Beco Butterfly a household name (in babywearing houses!)

The Beco Butterfly debuted with a bang, and a sizzle, due to a voluntary recall.  I visited Gabby’s shop in Southern California the week the carriers began flooding back in to have their new safety buckles added.  The shop was overflowing with packages, and in the middle of it all was the always calm, always smiling Gabby enthusiastically telling me about the upcoming design changes and fabric options!  Not letting a little thing like a massive recall get her down, Gabby had already figured out how to make the Butterfly even better! And so, out fluttered the Beco Butterfly II showing off its loveliness and featuring just a few fabulous upgrades that made the Butterfly II unique in a market now flooded with Soft Structured Carriers:  unparalled features, unequivocal beauty, one stop shopping for the babywearer who only wants/ needs 1 carrier, and that special fashion style that only Beco Baby Carriers possess!

I have no doubt that the Gemini will be just as lovely and just as sought after as the Beco Butterfly because with Gabby and her Beco Baby Carriers, there is only the Beco way to wear your baby - in style, in comfort, and in love!

*happy babywearing*

Beco is hosting a Gemini give away!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

Here are the nitty gritty details:

• Become a friend at Beco’s Facebook page, and feel welcome to become a fan of myBecoBaby’s page too!

• Make a video starring your favorite baby carrier ever (any version of a Beco will do - BWD, XO, 4th Generation, Butterfly I, or Butterfly II), your baby, and you!   Then, post your babywearing-mentary (that’s like a documentary but all about babywearing, get it, get it?) at YouTube, and read carefully, here’s the tricky part:

You MUST write the title of your video like this Beco Gemini Contest FIRSTNAME LASTNAME
So the movie made by Beco’s creator, Gabby, would be Beco Gemini Contest  GABBY CAPERON

• By the way, make sure that ALL your information is current on your YouTube account so that Beco can contact you if/ when you win!

• Link to your video at Beco’s Facebook page

• The end date hasn’t been released yet, so better work fast in case it’s sooner than later!

• The ironic part of the Gemini give away is to win a Beco, you must have a Beco in your possession.  The other ironic thing is that I have a substantial collection of Beco carriers so if anyone needs to borrow one to take a video with, let me know!

Grab your baby, grab your Beco, get creative, and WIN THAT GEMINI!!!!!!!! Good luck & have fun, Beco mamas!

• myBecoBaby wants to see your videos!!!  Post them here too so we can watch too!

*happy babywearing*

This letter from Beco founder Gabby Caperon appeared on an early version of the Beco Baby Carrier website and describes her journey through the creation of the original Beco Baby Carriers.

In November 06, it’ll be a year since I designed the Beco Baby Carrier previously known as the bECOpack.

Since then, the design went thru many changes and these days, I still work on improvements and a fine tuning.?A lot of improvements are based on a customer’s and user’s feedback.

Despite a common assumption, the Beco Carrier design is not based on the Ergo Baby Carrier design. The very opposite is true. In fact, I have not even seen the Ergo Carrier at the time I designed the Beco.

I’m one of those people, who were born with the backpack on their back. Or I do better say, I’ve been wearing one since ever I can remember. This only make sense, since I am a big outdoor person and I spent most of my childhood and teenagehood in the mountains, hiking, climbing and skiing. And I also have been always very interested in design and useful things and into making these things myself. Growing up behind the Iron curtain, where almost nothing was available to buy (unless you had the right connections or were a part of a party, which our family wasn’t), to make thing ourselves was not a matter of an entertainment, but a need. Later on in my life, I did not became a designer as I always dreamed, but went thru a business school (small business major) and then a medical school (massage therapy).

When I became pregnant with our son Duke (Summer of 2004), I was working as a crew on an US Sailing Vessel Curlew, a schooner from 1926, in Dana Point, California. At 7th months, I was asked to leave due to a ’showing’. And thus I became FAHM (Future At Home Mom Being a very active person, who has a hard time to stay still for 10 minutes, I naturally became a bit bord at home. So, I decided to make a diaper covers for our coming son. I have never sewn before, but figured, it could not be all that impossible to manage. I aquired a 40 year old Brother from a friend of mine. And with a help of a local alteration guy (a great man from Turkey, whom I bothered so much, that we became friends) we got the machine going. He shown me, how to tread it, oil it and overall keep it running. He was really laughing at me, when I told him, that I set up a business (got a business license which says “production of waterproof garments for children”, the closest category to my intentions, which the City had) and this will be my new job. I was actually laughing at myself too.

Before our son was born, I managed to sew for him a set of fleece diaper covers in newborn size. And they turned out to work quite well. Anyway, at that point, I was really into a diaper making and had a used Baby Bjorn sitting in the closet, waiting for our first walk. That day finally came! I consider myself a conscious mother, and so just as I was sure that I want a water birth and co-sleep, breastfeed and cloth diaper our son, I was also very sure, that I want to carry him, rather then to use a stroller (plus we did not have the money to buy one anyway).

We live close to the beach, so me and Duke in the Baby Bjorn were headed there. For the first 10 minutes, I was the happiest mother on the Earth wearing my baby for the first time, proudly, happily. But once we hit the sand, I started to readjust the carrier as much as possible, thinking, what was going wrong. I’m enjoying a great health and had never nothing wrong with my back, untill then I was seriously aching from carrying a 9 pounds heavy(light) baby. This experience set of my new desire to find (and/or make) something more comfortable then what I had.

I remembered to see some pictures of mothers from other cultures, carrying their babies. So I went to library and founded a books about the life on Native Americans, Africans and Asians. we did not have a computer at home at that time, but I used the one in library. Searching under “traditional baby carrying”, I’ve found that I am about a 100.000th mom doing so! There was quite a few information out there already.

I went home and sewn my very first Mai Tai that day. It was perfectly usable and good enough looking…and I sold it! To a mom in grocery store, while waiting in the checkout line, for $20 I was absolutely stocked! And since sewing a Mei Tais was easier for me then the diaper covers, my business intention shifted. But I kept the name Ecobabies, since the business licence costed a fortune! This was in June 05, I believe, and I opened the website in July 05. I was making Mei Tais and Onbuhimos, pouches, ring slings and wraps and while the business was doing so-so, it was not really anything magnificent. For a good reason! There were already others, who were doing their job much better then I did.

By the Fall, my son was 6 months old and getting heavier. Also, making a traditional carriers, I was a bit tired of all that wrapping and strapping. Just to make it easier for myself, I chopped the long mei tai straps and added a double ring slings at the waist and the side of the carrier’s body, where the straps normally crossed the body. It did not looked any great but was much faster to put on. But since there was no padding whatsoever, it was not comfy either with my growing son. At that point, I took a good look at my hiking backpack. That backpack is one of the biggest investments I ever made, but wort every penny. It’s a super backpack, which’s ergonomics stand behind the Beco Design. I tried to make a Mei Tai looking and working?like that backpack. And that was it! At least for me, I knew I finally got something good. I did not stopped working on the design since then. My first Beco was funky looking made with anything suitable I could find at home.

In Spring of 2006, the Beco design started to proove itself and other moms and dads were liking it. By Summer 06, the production increased 4 times and by this Fall 8 times. I no longer sew the Becos myself, since it would be impossible (I tried Nowadays, we have a small sewing shop in Costa Mesa, California and produce the Becos with the highest quality materials available (the hardware we use is used by US Army as well) on industrial machines with a help of experinced seamstresses. And I have a whole new realm of things to learn about industrial production, business management and being actually a boss, which is much harder then I ever imagined! I’m still a full time mom and take Duke with me everywhere, which at his 18 months is quite a challenging thing to do (for me) he has no problems with it

The future of the business and the whole babywearing movement is really on the rise and I am very happy being a part of it. I’m happy that I’ve found a meaningful way to serve others, which makes a better parent too. I would to thank you all of our very dedicated and patient customers, friends and family and mainly to our son Duke for the inspiration, motivation and happiness which has been brought to my life!

Sincerely,
Gabby Caperon
Owner and Beco Designer