New York, NY (production with global artisan workshops) · Est. 2024 · Founded by Michelle Pham
Michelle Pham grew up in Vancouver as the daughter of Vietnamese refugees -- her parents crafty out of necessity, her childhood afternoons spent at the fabric store with her mother, feeling swatches and studying colors. She graduated from Bates College, spent a decade in tech at Google and TikTok, and then came back to what had always mattered most. Inner Child launched in New York with a simple conviction: color is not childish. It is joyful, and the home deserves more of it.
Michelle Pham's parents were Vietnamese refugees who were crafty out of necessity. Her mother could sew. Their home was full of making things. After school, Michelle's afternoons were spent at the fabric store looking at colors, running her hands across swatches, absorbing a love for textile and material that she wouldn't fully act on for decades. She graduated from Bates College, traveled extensively through her twenties, and built a career in tech at Google and TikTok -- absorbing, watching, learning how design and culture move through the world.
Then she built Inner Child. The premise is the name: as adults, we're conditioned to view luxury as beige, minimal, restrained. But children know something we forget -- that color is joyful, that whimsy is not frivolous, that the home can hold delight. Inner Child designs textiles and home goods in New York and produces them with multi-generational artisan workshops around the world, using handlooms that require no electricity, AZO-free dyes, and small-batch production that leaves almost no waste. Block printing from an eighth-generation workshop. Hand-marbled panels. Hand-stitched quilts. Recycled paper made from leftover cotton at the end of each textile run. On a registry, Inner Child is the category that gives a home its personality -- color, texture, and the quiet joy of something made by hands that have been making this way for generations.
