Natalys Brand Guidelines: The Paris Maternity Shop of 1953 That Became a Nursery Brand

A maternity-wear shop near the Madeleine.

Natalys began as a single shop. French Wikipedia says the business opened in 1953 on rue Vignon in Paris, in a boutique set up by the Kelman family that sold clothes for expectant mothers. The name, it adds, comes from the Latin natalis, meaning “of birth.” A 2024 report from the AFP news agency, published by FashionUnited, also gives 1953 as the year the brand was founded.

The range widened in steps. According to French Wikipedia, Natalys designed its first collection of babywear in 1972, and in the 1980s it created its first nursery rooms and moved into the wider world of preparing for a baby: prams, bedroom furniture, products for mealtimes and the bath. The same article says the chain then grew by opening boutiques in the city centres of France’s larger cities.

That mix of its own designs and a selection of other makers’ goods still defines the shop. French Wikipedia describes Natalys as designing its own pieces while choosing products from partner brands, and the brand’s website in November 2026 sells clothing for babies and children up to six years old, a maternity range under the heading “Maman,” and nursery goods from prams to furniture and bedding. French Wikipedia says the brand’s prints are drawn exclusively for Natalys and renewed each season, and that its trousseau of first clothes for a newborn centres on velvet pyjamas, soft knits and matching sets.

Corners, a concept store and a shop online.

Natalys opened an online shop in February 2009, French Wikipedia says. In the following decade the brand added space inside Paris department stores: a corner at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 2020, a dedicated stand at Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in 2021 and a corner at Printemps in 2022. French Wikipedia counted 20 boutiques and six corners in France in 2022.

The largest single project was a concept store. In 2021 Natalys opened Natalys and Friends at 1 rue Saint-Denis in central Paris, a shop of more than 350 square metres that brings together a selection of the partner brands Natalys sells, French Wikipedia says. The brand’s website lists brand pages for partners including BabyBjörn, Stokke, Nuna and Charlie Crane, alongside its own Natalys label.

The shop is also a place for gifts. French Wikipedia describes birth lists that parents can write and share, and personalised pieces such as bodysuits, slippers and soft toys. On its website in 2026 the brand offers “Click & Go,” an order prepared for collection in a boutique within two hours, and home delivery.

The store finder on the Natalys website in November 2026 lists six boutiques: four in Paris, including one on rue Vignon and the Natalys and Friends store, one in Antony, south of Paris, and one in Marseille.

Store chains for new parents.

Baby and nursery store chains in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Australia sell to families at the same moment in life, but each presents itself in its own way. The shop sign and logo are the first point of contact, and the same name is carried onto catalogues and websites; Mothercare’s history page, for example, shows its catalogues from 1962 onwards beside shopfronts from Kingston in 1961 to Plymouth in 2018. Colour schemes are each company’s own choice.

Store formats run from large nursery superstores to high-street shops and shop-in-shop counters inside other retailers. Mothercare describes a range from small shop-in-shop units to mid-sized high-street stores and larger out-of-town or shopping-mall stores, while PRG Retail Group describes Prénatal’s Italian network as a mix of shops and megastores, including a two-floor store near Milan shared with the Toys Center banner.

Franchising is one route abroad. Mothercare says it began franchising in 1984 and awards one partner per territory, so the same name can appear over stores run by different companies in different countries. Own-label ranges sit beside branded nursery goods, and the companies name and describe those ranges themselves on their websites and in their catalogues.

Corporate pages tell the rest of the story: founders, owners and changes of ownership. Mothercare and Prénatal have both passed through mergers, private-equity ownership or sale, and Mothercare’s British shops closed after its UK arm entered administration in 2019. For a design reader, these pages are a direct record of how a name, a sign and a palette have travelled through those changes.

A group of three children’s brands.

Since 2006 Natalys has belonged to a larger children’s group. FashionUnited, carrying an AFP report in November 2024, said that in 2006 the group of Paul Zemmour, who had launched the children’s clothing chain Sergent Major in 1986 and opened its first shop in 1987, acquired Natalys Paris, and that the group bought Du Pareil au Même in 2016. French Wikipedia names the parent as La Générale pour l’Enfant (GPE), a family-held group it says was created in 1987, with Sergent Major and Du Pareil au Même as its sister brands. The legal notice on the Natalys website places the company’s registered office in Montreuil, east of Paris.

The group went through French insolvency proceedings in 2023 and 2024. FashionUnited reported in March 2024, citing AFP, that the commercial court of Bobigny had placed GPE in receivership (redressement judiciaire) on 14 March 2024, with an observation period running to 16 September; Du Pareil au Même had entered receivership in June 2023, and Sergent Major, first placed under safeguard proceedings, followed in December. French Wikipedia dates Natalys’s own receivership to April 2024. In November 2024 FashionUnited reported that the Bobigny court, in a decision dated 31 October 2024, had accepted a recovery plan put forward by the management, judging it “serious,” so that the three brands could continue trading. At the end of September 2024 the group had 565 points of sale worldwide, 377 of them in France, according to that court decision as quoted by AFP.

The plan was built on fresh financial contributions and a large reduction in the group’s debts, the court found, according to the same report. Natalys continues to trade under the group, through its boutiques in Paris, Antony and Marseille, its concept store and its online shop; the website’s legal notice names the company as Natalys, a simplified joint-stock company (SAS).

For a design guide, Natalys shows how a brand born in a single maternity boutique can stretch to babywear, furniture and a store of other makers’ goods while keeping one name. Compare Aubert, another French nursery chain, and Orchestra, another French children’s and nursery retailer. For this guide we use a plum, a blush pink and a linen neutral with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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