Soft fashion colors, cool materials. Anyone who accidentally walks into a baby store may be able to tell from the cribs and rompers alone that it is not a store for adults.
The fact that baby items are no longer just made for the eyes of the babies themselves, but must also be attractive for adults, is partly due to Max Barenbrug (1964-2023), who passed away last week. The Dutch designer designed the Bugaboo multifunctional stroller as a graduation project in the mid-1990s – he graduated with honors from the Design Academy in Eindhoven.
After he got his brother-in-law Eduard Zanen on board in 1999 and they started their own factory in Taiwan, the stroller became a worldwide success. Especially when the car appeared for a few seconds in the American television series Sex and the City could be seen. Since then, stars such as Madonna and Elton John, as well as the British and Dutch royal families, have been seen with the car.
During his studies, Barenbrug is said to have been inspired by a couple he saw fiddling with a stroller. “That was my aha moment,” he said the British newspaper TheTelegraph. He thought that all strollers at the time looked the same, with “infantile colors and bulky white tires.” “There was nothing attractive about it.”
Barenbrug later said in several interviews that the idea arose to make parents’ lives “easy”. Not just because the Bugaboo, with its thick tires and handy folding system, could be used anywhere. Also because of appearance: parents did not have to give up their style because they had children. Bugaboo was a pioneer in this regard. Nowadays, most strollers have a fashionable color and can be folded easily and small (by most people).
Although Bugaboo is still a global success – the company it is part of had a record turnover of 201 million euros in 2022 – Barenbrug’s story is also a story of how successful designers are not always successful business people.
“I just started my own business and I have no idea about many things, facility, finance and retail,” he countered de Volkskrant. “I am a dreamer. My thoughts always wander in meetings. I’m also too naive for it.”
Also read: Bugaboo bought by American investor
Barenbrug had his brother-in-law Zanen in business for many years, but that business relationship eventually failed. In 2012, when tensions between the partners had increased, Zanen and Barenbrug had recorded that the two founders would sell their shares if one no longer had confidence in the other. When ex-brother-in-law Zanen wanted to invoke that clause, legal proceedings were necessary to get Barenbrug to do so. In 2018, the brand was sold to the American investor Bain Capital.
Barenbrug was subsequently involved with his brainchild as head of design. According to It Financial Daily even when he was struck by an incurable disease. In the same F.D said Barenbrug in 2013, before he became ill, that he was not afraid of death, because he had already seen many people die. “With all those dying next to me […] I think I can estimate what it is like to die. The moment itself and the walk towards it: I think it’s just beautiful. Unless you are very sick. So I am not afraid of death; for pain.”
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