Storq CEO Courtney Klein’s Favorite Baby Decor Can Be Reused and Repurposed

September 26, 2023

Storq CEO Courtney Klein’s Favorite Baby Decor Can Be Reused and Repurposed

It’s time to rethink the typical baby registry.

When CEO Courtney Klein and creative director Grace Kapin cofounded Storq in 2014 during their early 30s, neither of them had gone through pregnancy and given birth. But seeing how so many of their expecting friends were dissatisfied with maternity fashion at the time, the pair set out to create a brand with a more design-focused and trend-agnostic approach using higher quality fabrics cut in understated silhouettes. Storq’s mission was to help pregnant people "maintain their identity and style during a really transformative time," says Klein. The brand launched with its popular Maternity Basics Bundle, a four-piece capsule wardrobe "meant to be styled with things you already own, but these are the soft base layers that you can wear during your pregnancy," Klein says. Since then, the brand has expanded into loungewear, nursing essentials, and early parenthood accessories. Over the decade since Storq’s launch, both cofounders eventually experienced motherhood firsthand — Klein and Kapin each have two children.

When thinking about how going through her own pregnancies informed the evolution of Storq, Klein says the brand eventually transitioned away from looking so sleek and high fashion, which she learned "was actually a little bit alienating to our audience." In turn, Storq expanded its size range to accommodate more pregnant bodies and different sizes of pregnant bodies so a larger customer base could feel included, "versus the fashion perspective that we had when we first started, which got us attention, but in the world of parenthood you very quickly have an empathy for your customers going through such an intense time," says Klein. "Going through pregnancy definitely pushed us in this kind of new, warmer brand direction, even though we were selling the same products."

When it comes to Klein and her partner’s San Francisco home, having children did not necessarily equate to making too many aesthetic sacrifices (interior style has been important to the couple; her husband Zach Klein was the former CEO of Dwell). Buying baby-friendly decor simply became a more thoughtful and carefully considered process.

"You still have taste. You still have style. There are still ways to have design and have kids. I think sometimes we see those things as oppositional when they can really work together," says Klein. "We call it the ‘baby industrial complex,’ this idea of buying something then getting rid of it. I like finding items that can grow with you or have it look good in your house beyond their single use so you're not just giving it away or tossing it in a landfill after," says Klein of some of her favorite baby-friendly, multi-purpose items, like a changing basket that can double as a linens bin or sculptural body pillows that can liven up a couch post-pregnancy. This reusability ethos is essentially what Storq is founded on, too. "All of the clothes that we sell, you can keep wearing them [even when you’re] not pregnant or not nursing. They look like normal clothes," says Klein. "It’s funny actually, I just looked down and I'm wearing a Storq button-up right now."