From Scratch: Oliebollen

Metromode:

Thanks to Oliebollen, the online brainchild of a former stay-at-home mom, kids with fashion-conscious parents are reaping the benefits of hip, modern threads.

Named for a doughnut-like Dutch holiday treat, Oliebollen (OH-lee boh-len) sells children’s clothes, home goods, toys and books with a decidely European flair.

After working for her husband’s Internet development company in the late ’90s, Ann Arbor mom Margaret Schankler sought to pursue her own online venture. “At the time, e-commerce was at its infancy,” Schankler says. “I wanted to do something with children’s design and I wanted to do something with the Internet; I had access to programmers and I had the opportunity.”

With her young daughter beginning grade school, Schankler found that she not only had time to pursue a new business venture but also the inspiration for Oliebollen. “My daughter’s best friend in kindergarten was from Denmark,” Schankler explains. “She had all these cute clothes — Danish design and Scandinavian design for kids … [they were] the antithesis of American design which was all cutesy-cutesy.”

Schankler started conceptualization for a website in 1998 to provide kids gear with a sense of the chic. Oliebollen launched the following spring. What began as an idea for a webmagazine with retail on the side actualized as a full-blown online store.