Our Story
Hello! We are hello DODO - AKA Ali and Jam, although most people refer to us as “the DODOs” and we don’t mind that at all. It all started out as a joint side project, dreamt up whilst sitting in the sunshine on the banks of the River Thames in Windsor. Quite quickly though it became the obsession! Jam would come up with design ideas in between working for corporate clients...I’d doodle design ideas on till rolls whilst at my mind numbingly boring retail job. We taught ourselves to screen print and made every mistake in the book, at least twice, until we got it right.
Photo: Clare Newman @colourbloc_photography
We established hello DODO in 2011 as a bit of a creative side project to work on together but very quickly it became so much more than that to us. We started out designing greetings cards and screen printing on to paper but after a few years the idea of people wearing our designs became the ultimate dream.
If you asked us to label what hello DODO is we’d say that we’re an indie fashion label, creating comfy clothes for playful people, handprinted with love (and ink!) All of our design ideas come from our own strange minds and inspirations (seaside living, adventures and dogs being a few of them). We source the best quality ethically made garments, many of which are made in a climate neutral eco factory and we post things out plastic-free. All of this we do out of our tiny custom built print studio at the bottom of our little garden in Worthing, West Sussex on the South Coast of England. We manage out of such a compact space by often screen printing our pieces to order, each piece is then heat cured with our heat press (AKA Pete The Heat) and labels are sewn in at our kitchen table with our trusty bright red sewing machine.
hello DODO is now nearing it’s 10th year. A DECADE OF DODO! A lot has changed over the years but the obsession remains very much the same as does the desire to spread smiles. A smile goes a long way! Our biggest hope is that when people pull on one of our sweatshirts, hang one of our prints or iron on one of our patches is that it makes their day just that bit brighter and more fun...and that can make all the difference, don’t you think?
DODO SPECIALS
One of the most fun features we've added to the business is DODO Specials which is exclusive to subscribers of our newsletter 'show + tell'. We wanted a way of offering sizes, colours and even styles that the confines of our little studio wouldn't usually allow us to do! So every now and then for a few days we open up our order books for Specials and we get to work directly with our customers to create colour combinations and print on to all sorts of different sizes - it's as much fun for us as it is for them!
Photo: