About Us
Designed for Babies
Kushies was founded as a small cottage style industry in 1953. It grew to become the only Canadian manufacturer of doll clothing and accessories, with a customer list that included all the major Canadian department stores.
In 1988, Sam Perez and Susan Malinowski purchased the assets of the doll company and assumed the roles of President / CEO and Vice-President. They started to look for additional market possibilities for the company to expand. The decision was made to concentrate efforts on the infant children’s market, with the initial product to be a re-useable form-fitted cloth diaper. The internationally trademarked name “Kooshies” was created for the new product line. As President, Sam Perez, explained, “It was a unique name easily pronounced in many languages, enabling the product to be marketed worldwide under one name”. After designing the revolutionary 100 per cent cotton, reusable diaper, “Kooshies” undertook a year of extensive testing and refinements, and went on to patent the “Kooshies” diaper.
In just over a year, “Kooshies” became the industry leader in Canada, with sales exceeding initial projections tenfold. Their market was also expanding into the United States at this time. Since 1990 “Kooshies” has grown to become a market leader in more than 35 countries around the world.
The year 2003 was notable for “Kooshies”. In 1988, the name was spelled “KOOSHIES”. This name had been successfully registered with a worldwide trademark. However, there was opposition from a company registered in the United States and over a ten-year period, without any real progress, the parties finally reached a settlement early 2003. Sam realized the solution would be to change the spelling. That year the corporate logo, labels and packaging were changed to “KUSHIES”.