The Inspiration Behind The Summer Collection

We recently launched our newest CAMBIE blanket collection, inspired by our founder Camille’s nostalgia of spending summer holidays in Peru. In this entry, Camille digs a little deeper and shares the memories that helped develop the collection.

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I spent much of the winter months dreaming up CAMBIE’s summer collection, finding comfort in my memories of Peru. I enjoy sharing my connection to Peru with you particularly after this past year, with all of the challenges faced and lack of connection it brought us as a community. I recently shared a post on Instagram to honour a special day, my Auntie Cathy’s birthday, and expressed my gratitude towards her and her tremendous influence on my creativity. Auntie Cathy also played a role in developing this year’s summer CAMBIE blanket collection and I’d love to explain how. 

Our family holidays to Peru were often over the winter breaks here in Canada, allowing us to enjoy the summer season in Peru. And in the summer, we would visit my Auntie Cathy’s beach house located just south of Lima. This beach house was pure magic, in the evenings we would watch the sun set into the Pacific Ocean and if we were lucky, catch a glimpse of wild dolphins jumping and playing while they swam. I can so clearly remember dreaming about those dolphins while we would sleep, with the windows open feeling the cool breeze off the Pacific Ocean and smelling the salty air as you doze off to the sound of the waves. Memories of this house being full of life as my extended family gathered, eating good food and listening to music while we played, danced and swam. The beach house was painted a rich shade of Henri Matisse blue on the outside while the interior was the colour of lucuma fruit, one of my favourite ice cream flavours as a child.

I spent much of this past winter looking at photographs from these family holidays, finding such deep comfort in these memories from my childhood. The nostalgia became all consuming and while dreaming up future collections for CAMBIE, I even found myself listening to the music we enjoyed at the beach house. Quite specifically, Billy Joel’s ‘The River of Dreams’ or Sade’s ‘Smooth Operator’, a couple of my Auntie Cathy’s favourite songs where I can visualize her encouraging me to find my creativity. I decided a collection inspired by my childhood nostalgia of spending summers in Peru would make a beautiful tribute.

My creative direction with the photo shoot for this collection was to capture everyday moments and daily life, to take snapshots of a moment in time. I wanted the photography of this collection to act as a visual representation of our memories and favourite summertime moments.

Presenting the three limited edition colours of our summer collection:

With the Spanish word for strawberry, The Fresa Blanket is an homage to eating juicy fruits and frozen paletas on the beach.

With the Spanish word for watermelon, The Sandía Blanket is a cheerful fuchsia highlighting a bright colour of beautiful bougainvilleas, my absolute favourite flowers!

With the Spanish word for grape, The Uva Blanket in a bright shade of purple sparks memories of a favourite childhood drink, chicha morada. 

Browse the entire CAMBIE blanket collection. And thank you again for your continued support and the opportunity to pay tribute to this beautiful country that I love! Peru has faced many challenges in the pandemic and continues to, your support is greatly appreciated.

Photography by Worker Bee Supply.