Friends’ new baby boutique brand honors infant who died

Friends since second grade, more than 20 years ago, Haley Brown and Paige Theel often talked about going into business together.

This summer, they made those dreams come true when, joined by husbands Derek Brown and Riley Theel, they opened Kai Rose & Co., their own baby boutique brand that offers gender-neutral clothing.

The company also intends to go beyond outfitting babies and toddlers. Kai Rose will donate a portion of its sales to nonprofits that support families who have lost infants and children. That includes all Kai Rose clothing like adult sweatshirts, T-shirts and hats that bear its logo. The initial recipient will be the Children’s Miracle Network in a promotion that will begin soon and run for several weeks. It will involve a custom shirt for children and adults.

The cause was chosen because the Theels benefited from counsel and support through similar nonprofits after the death of their first child, Kai Riley. He was born June 20, 2021, and died almost six months later of bacterial meningitis.

They selected their clothing line’s name to honor Kai and the flower that symbolizes the month he was born.

“We knew we wanted to do something to remember him by, and the girls always wanted to do their own business,” Riley Theel said. “They know what they’re doing with fashion and have an interest in baby clothes, and we have young kids. They basically decided to start up Kai Rose.”

“After he passed, we were like ‘life’s too short,’ so let’s stop talking about it and actually doing it,” Paige Theel said.

“I don’t think we would have done it without everything that happened with Kai,” Haley Brown said. “I think we would have kept talking and doing what was comfortable. This was not comfortable but exciting.”

Starting the new business, Derek Brown said, was a leap of faith. His wife and her friend always came up with good ideas but hesitated to take that final step. When they came up with the idea of Kai Rose, they asked Derek, a CPA, to start a limited liability company. Riley Theel is a director at Sanford Health, while Paige Theel works as a sales representative for commercial office products. Haley Brown stepped away from teaching last spring.

The Browns are the parents of two daughters: Willow, 3, and Indy, 1. The Theels’ second son, Koa, is 10 months old. Now at the perfect age for Kai Rose fashions, the children can be seen modeling the clothing, which avoids putting boys and girls in the typical blue and pink stereotypes.

“Going forward, you can reuse the clothing for each baby,” Paige Theel said.

Kai Rose promises one -to two-day turn around for local orders and getting orders fulfilled and a quick turn around on overall deliveries.

Both families live in Dell Rapids, where  the two women grew up. A  pop-up shop in a Dell Rapids coffee house proved so successful that Riley had to make seven or eight trips back to the Theel basement, which doubles as the Kai Rose warehouse, to restock items from newborn sizes to 5T.

Kai Rose will look for other such events while it continues to expand its online presence and grow the business. Eventually, the two women would like to see the clothing they now doodle on scraps of paper turn into items they can offer through Kai Rose.

“We dream up a lot of ideas,” Haley Brown said.

“From where we started to now, we’re still looking for ways to do stuff and come up with ideas and vendors to help us achieve what we want to do for our private-label items,” Paige Theel said.

Parents welcome gender-neutral clothing, the women said.

“At least you have options with staples,” Paige Theel said. “I know some parents who go all out, go all pink, and then they can never pass them down to the next kid who may be a boy. That’s one really nice thing for me and Riley and for the credit card, that we don’t have to keep buying.”

“I have two girls and like to match them,” Haley Brown said. “Most of the clothes my girls wear from our boutique, I could put a boy in them. With girls, you just pop a bow on their head.”

Haley Brown and Paige Theel began dating the men who would become their husbands in 2017, and they were engaged in 2019. Their wedding dates are six months apart. When Kai died, the Browns, already the parents of Willow, grieved with their friends.

The grief remains, but now it is being channeled into something good by two couples who are determined to make baby Kai’s life matter and help others.

It’s a goal that likely doesn’t surprise those who know Haley Brown and Paige Theel. The women themselves describe each other in glowing terms. Her friend is funny and never afraid to say what she thinks, Haley Brown said. Paige Theel describes Haley as kind-hearted and a true best friend.

“When she was picking out her wedding dress, she was between two dresses, and the gal was talking about them,” Paige said of Haley. “She said the designers’ names, and one of the (dresses) that she was considering, Hayley Page was the designer. So it was that one.”

Online

You can find Kai Rose & Co. online here. The company also is on Facebook and Instagram.