From parent marketplaces to rental platforms and stores for preloved children’s fashion, Absolutely Mama rounds up the best circular kids brands…

Kidswear Collective

Kidswear Collective was founded in 2018 by childrenswear PR Shoshana Kazab. The award-winning online store is the place to go to buy pre-loved and past season designer children’s fashion. Kazab is passionate about extending the life cycle of luxury clothes and her industry expertise and connections set Kidswear Collective apart from other sites in the circular fashion space. All items are sourced from her exclusive network including fashion influencers and prestigious brands such as Stella McCartney Kids, Chloé, Burberry and Gucci.

Kazab says “It’s funny as when we launched we were the only ones doing it, but there are so many others now! But we’re doing things differently in that we’re ‘direct to consumer’ rather than ‘peer to peer’ which is the eBay model. So we inspect, clean and authenticate all the items and we store them for sellers so they can get them out of their homes to make space for bigger sizes. And our focus is on premium brands rather than high street / fast fashion as we want to carry brands which are better quality and have a longer life-cycle.”

Beyond doing good for the environment, the online store also supports children’s charities. 5% of all sales proceeds are donated to the NSPCC to support their child protection and awareness campaigns. And any pre-owned children’s clothes received which cannot be sold will be delivered to Little Village, a charity that collects clothes for babies and children and gifts them on to referred families who are dealing with challenging circumstances including homelessness, unemployment, low wages and domestic violence.

Kazab’s industry connections have also allowed her to forge some exciting brand partnerships. Kidswear Collective has recently started to work with Il Gufo, where if you buy pre-loved Il Gufo from Kidswear Collective, you get 15% off a new season purchase. And Il Gufo customers who send Kidswear Collective their pre-owned items also get a 15% discount at Il Gufo as a reward for their sustainability. Customers can also request accessories like spare buttons if they are missing from any items so they can be restored.

Since launching, Kidswear Collective has also opened physical spaces in Selfridges Oxford Street, Fenwick Brent Cross and Newcastle as well as Bentalls. Customers at Selfridges and Fenwick can bring in their kids’ outgrown clothes to the stores and there will also be consignment days where people can bring in their clothes for instant valuations and to ask questions.

And hot off the press, Kidswear Collective will also be hosting a sample sale at Bicester Village as part of the partnership they’re launching with them. The sale is on from 21st – 22nd March and there is secret VIP day on Sunday 20th March, which Absolutely Mama readers are welcome to attend.

Kids o’Clock

Kids o’Clock was founded by former Net-a-Porter, Moda Operandi and Harvey Nichols buyer, Laura Roso Vidrequin. The London-based mama started the platform when she was on maternity leave and was searching for a parenting community that offered stylish rental or resale items for kids. Unable to find what she was looking for, she launched Kids o’Clock, a peer-to-peer marketplace that enables parents to list their children’s clothing for rent or sale, and to borrow and buy pieces from other families at a fraction of the retail price.

The platform focuses on recycling clothing for babies from birth up to the age of 10 and features luxury brands such as Christian Dior, Chloé and Bonpoint, as well as high-street pieces from brands including Zara, Petit Bateau and H&M. As well as kid’s fashion, users can also sell toys, prams and toiletries.

To get going, all you need to do is sign up and you can buy and sell from anyone within the Kids o’Clock community. The platform also offers a Golden Membership, where the Kids o’Clock team will pick up your items, photograph them, and also upload them onto your profile. Taking the hassle out of listing your items, the Kids o’Clock team will also manage any sales that come from the listings.

thelittleloop

Launched in 2020 by Charlotte Morley, thelittleloop is a rental platform for sustainable kids clothing. The premise is simple: parents pay for a certain number of credits per month, which can be exchanged for clothes. The number of credits per garment depends on the label, the item, and the number of times it has been worn before. Included in the subscription fee is unlimited swaps; laundry of the clothes that are returned and insurance against stains and wear and tear. 

Like most parents, Morley found the process of handing down kids’ clothing difficult to navigate. Storing clothes between children meant that she was tight on space and would end up with the wrong size at the wrong time of year. And reselling clothing took too much time without guarantee of success. Stuck in a rut of hand-me-downs, supplemented by buying new and unable to get rid of clothes in a responsible way once her youngest had outgrown them, she decided to launch thelittleloop.

The platform works with ethical and sustainable kids brands including Pigeon Organics, Piccalily, Frugi and Green Little Radicals. They typically rent out items 4-5 times, extending their lifespan by 12 months and eliminating the production of 3-4 new garments. In the space of a year, thelittleloop currently saves 630 kgs of clothing waste; 13,547kgs of CO2 emissions and 583,771 litres of water. 

Wunder Duds

Kidswear resale marketplace Wunder Duds was founded by Lyndsey Diamond, a mama and designer with over 20 years experience in the fashion industry. After moving back to London from NYC in 2019, she found herself with boxes of outgrown and rarely worn kids clothing. Diamond launched Wunder Duds with the aim to help families like her own to earn back cash from selling their little one’s outgrown things, allowing them to reinvest in the next size up. 

Wunder Duds accepts designer, high street and vintage items, as long as they are still in good condition. Families can opt to self-list, which allows them to enjoy zero seller fees and to pocket 100% of the earnings. Parents can also send their items to Wunder Duds where they take care of photos, pricing, listing and postage using their branded packaging. For this service, a 40% commission fee is taken from each sale. There is also an option where sellers can donate clothes and 100% proceeds go to a children’s charity. At the moment, all monetary proceeds are being donated to Action For Children. 

Current brands looking for a second lease of life include Veja, Stella McCartney Kids, Bobo Choses, and high street favourites such as The Little White Company and Boden. Diamond says the platform is aimed at: “families looking to minimise their environmental footprint, inspire change, and set the wheels in motion for a more conscious fashion future.”

dotte

After having children, dotte co-founders Louise and Sam were overwhelmed by how quickly their kids were growing out of clothes – and how few truly accessible (and circular) options there were for selling them on. They found shopping secondhand for themselves easy, but not-so-easy for their kids.

On a mission to open up thousands of children’s wardrobes, they launched dotte, a family-to-family marketplace where parents can buy, sell, donate and recycle outgrown children’s clothing. To become part of dotte’s community, all parents need to do is set up an account. A four-step guide then takes you through the listing process, offering you tips to help optimise your items. It is free to list on dotte and there is a 15% commission on all items sold.

The platform supports its community by sharing various creative ways to give new life to your children’s clothes, from repairing, refashioning and recycling, to garment care. They also offer the chance to donate and recycle still wearable and also over-loved items of clothing.

Bundlee

West London-based entrepreneur Eve Kekeh founded Bundlee in 2018 to provide a sustainable solution to buying baby clothes that are rapidly outgrown, by providing a seamless rental subscription service that also saves new parents time and money.

The rental service starts at £24 a month for 15 pieces and is delivered to your door in reusable packaging with a pre-paid returns label and care instructions. The cost includes insurance, so parents don’t need to worry about stains or wear and tear. Parents can rent from brands including Patagonia, MORI, and Mini Rodini, as well as Bundlee Originals – simple styles made from organic cotton, and available at a lower price to designer brands.

For each ‘Bundlee’ rented, customers can reduce their CO2e emissions by 86% and save 96% of the water compared to buying. Kekeh says: “It’s such a shame that sometimes the ‘sustainable’ options in life can often be more expensive, less effective, and ultimately difficult to slot into our busy lives. I started Bundlee to help new parents save much-needed time and money, with the sustainability savings from rental built into the core of the business. If we want consumers to make sustainable choices, it’s up to us, the entrepreneurs and business owners to come up with innovative products and services that do all the hard work, and make the sustainable choices a no-brainer”.

My Fourth Trimester

My Fourth Trimester is the UK’s first baby and nursery rental shop for parents. Families can rent anything from next-to-me cribs, to play gyms or clothing, from newborn up to 3 years old. You can also pre-order your nursery bundle(s) up to 6 months in advance, making it ideal for parents-to-be who want to plan ahead. The platform ships nationwide in the UK and brands include Mokee, Mini Rodini and Sproet & Sprout.

Launched in lockdown 2020, My Fourth Trimester is the brainchild of Fanny Zakrisson. Fanny says “The seed to what was going to become My Fourth Trimester started the summer of 2019 when my daughter  Liv was born. Liv was born with a cleft palate, and I found out I wasn’t going to be able to breastfeed her, something I had taken for granted. I ended up spending a fortune in equipment and accessories in the first few months of being a parent, and as I searched my way through the market I couldn’t help but wonder why there was no flexible alternative out there. What if parents could choose what they need – when they need it, instead? We believe living sustainably should be easy and affordable, and our vision is a world where renting comes as naturally as buying. We call it conscious parenting, but what it really is, is parenting on your terms.”

 

Babu

One to watch, Babu is the UK’s first rental subscription service focusing exclusively on designer baby and kids fashion and will launch in April. Designed for ages 0-4 boys and girls, Babu will offer monthly drops of 10-15 luxury pieces ranging from casualwear and partywear to outerwear, to be enjoyed for four weeks before being replaced with a brand new edit.

The platform will work with well-known stylists and mum influencers to curate these monthly capsule collections – offering a ‘personal shopping for your child’ style experience. Each collection is made up of current and past season pieces from Babu’s exclusive roster of brand partners, who include Balmain, Caramel, Il Gufo, Emilio Pucci, Gant, Roberto Cavalli, Stella McCartney, Tartine et Chocolat and more, with partnerships founded on shared quality and sustainability values.

The aim is for garments to be rented an average of 12 times. Every item will be cleaned and disinfected in-house upon each return using a proprietary state-of-the-art eco-friendly cleaning system. The process includes wet cleaning and ozone technology which delivers a better quality clean that is kinder to skin, clothes and the environment, all run on 100% green energy.

Babu is also aiming to make it easy for their customers to contribute to the sharing economy and help end child clothing poverty in the UK by including a donation bag with every delivery. Items in good condition from Babu’s brand partners will enter the Babu ecosystem and customers will be credited with rewards points to redeem against their subscription or to convert into a gift card.

Once the garments reach the end of their useful lives, Babu passes them onto their partner charity Little Village, or their sustainable impact partner Xetrov. Xetrov converts the pieces into renewable energy in a cutting-edge advanced thermal treatment process. This clean energy can then be used in a variety of ways including for power, heating, cooling, drying and food production.

Founders Alice Horlick, Bella Nesselrode and Georgia Lombard were inspired to launch Babu after discovering first-hand how quickly their children and friends’ children grew out of their clothes. London College of Fashion alumna Alice says, “One of Babu’s mottos is ‘slow fashion, fast’, because we believe in helping our customers enjoy a wider range of high-quality garments that are made to last. For less than the cost of buying one of our higher-priced items, our customers get to enjoy 10-15 impeccably presented pieces and change up their child’s wardrobe every month – with all garments sourced from exceptional luxury brands that are constantly striving to produce and operate in a more eco-friendly way.”