Highly recommended: read this page in Georgian if you can. It just sounds more like home there, and the home is where the soul lives, after all 🐸

Who is GRANNY TODU?

GRANNY TODU is a tired and slightly grumpy toad.

She is also a very cool toad. In the human world she isn't much of a big deal, but in the amphibian kingdom she's basically a mafia boss.

She is also the alter ego of the creator of the brand, Mariam Todua.

Alter ego because, while I'm not fully her yet, I really aspire to be.

You know how people spend years trying to reach enlightenment? 

I'm basically trying to become this toad. So far, I have a long way to go.

My amphibian embraces the absurdity of life and somehow manages to have fun with it.

She can also imagine Sisyphus happy.

Can you? Me neither.

But GRANNY TODU can.

Why "Granny"?

Crocheting is stereotypically considered a grandma hobby.

My friends certainly thought so.

Every time I skipped a Friday night outing because I wanted to stay home and crochet, they informed me that I had officially retired and become a grandma.

The annoying thing is that they were… right 😄

For months I sat in my room with my cat and my favorite TV shows, crocheting, sewing, making things, and occasionally watching other people live their twenties through Instagram Stories. Classic.

To be honest, in the current social, political, and economic reality, the ability to live the stereotypical "young adult life" often feels like a luxury.

One I never really had. So I accepted it.

I retired, and let this toad work.

Somebody has to earn money in this household, after all.

And why the amphibian?

Ironically, it all started on one of those rare Friday evenings when I actually went outside and met my friends.

After a few drinks, I announced that I wanted to start a crochet brand.

One of my friends pointed out that my surname, TODUA, could easily be turned into a word  TOAD.

And, unsurprisingly, after a few drinks, we all thought this was a brilliant idea (Thanks, Mate!). 

But I didn't keep the amphibian only because of the wordplay:

For as long as I can remember, I've felt like a toad, – not one of those sleek, smooth-skinned frogs, – but a rusty toad that was accidentally dropped into a very polished, very bourgeois society by some mysterious hand.

And that hand seemed to be having a great time watching me desperately try to become one of them.

What a tragicomic attempt at mimicry.

The desperate hope that if I stayed quiet enough, dressed correctly enough, behaved correctly enough, and wanted the correct things, I might eventually stop feeling like a toad that accidentally wandered into the wrong ecosystem.

A little quieter, a little less noticeable, a little more appropriate.

A little more like everyone else. Just another brick in the wall.

Then one day I got tired... So I gave up! 

And it turns out that sometimes giving up can be a wonderful thing.

The moment I stopped trying so hard to become somebody else,I got my feelings back. My creativity came back too. The ideas returned. And eventually, this entire brand appeared.

Who would've thought? I built a brand simply because I stopped trying so hard  😄

I don't like phoniness or performative perfection, and I have very little patience for people who hide who they are.

That's why the brand's tagline became BOLD. LOUD. ME.

For people who dare to stop shrinking themselves;

For people who dare to figure out who they are underneath all the noise.

And finally, one important detail:

Amphibians eat flies. My life philosophy has always been "ბუზების ჯინაზე."

No matter how annoying the flies get, you eat them and turn them into fuel.

Preferably while looking fabulous.