Tap Into Circular Retail to Keep Up With Growing Kids

It happens just about every quarter. The seasons change and your kiddos’ clothing from last year simply doesn’t fit. If your little one is due for a wardrobe refresh, and you want to keep clothes out of the landfill, we’ve got great news.  It’s easier than ever to buy and rent children’s clothing from a brand that sells delightful kids and baby clothes and minimize your impact on the environment. 

We asked Manymoons CEO Carolyn Butler to share her insight on sustainable brands and circular fashion for kids and how parents can find products that are good for their children and the environment.

I want to buy cute, sustainable clothes for my kids. Where do I start?

If you’re a Manymoons customer, you know they make it easy to buy, rent and give back women’s and children’s clothing but if you’re “shopping in the wild,” what should you consider when shopping for organic kids clothes? And how can circular retail fit into your shopping options?

According to Carolyn, “Like me, I know a lot of parents really care about the content in kids' clothing, especially for very young children. When I shop, I look for organic baby clothes and kids clothes and always check labels to see what content is in the clothing. The tricky part is that clothing brands don’t have to disclose what chemicals they use. So, when you’re shopping, look for certifications like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and OEKO-TEX, which tests textiles for harmful substances.”

Certifications can be difficult to get, and vary from country to country, but products that are made from a single natural material like cotton, linen or wool are the easiest to compost at the end of their useful life. 

Avoid synthetic fabrics and shop with B-Corp. brands

As a chemical engineer, Carolyn also encourages parents to avoid synthetic fabrics altogether where possible. “I'm just not a big believer in synthetic clothing. I don't think we should be using finite resources for products that have a useful life of less than one year, which is typically true for the vast majority of clothing in America. I try to stay away from synthetics as much as possible, especially for children. The idea of putting children in plastic doesn’t make sense to me, especially when you don’t know what chemicals clothing manufacturers are using.”

Carolyn also recommends exploring shopping with brands who have been certified as a B-Corp, companies who have a stated dual purpose of making shareholders money AND another societal benefit. 

As she explains, “In order to be certified as a B-Corp (B stands for benefit), both your environmental impact and human impact are scrutinized. The certification legally allows a company to make decisions in favor of the societal benefit they set out to attain over making shareholders money.” 

How does Manymoons determine whether or not a brand is a good fit?

“As America’s First Circular Retailer,^TM we fulfill all three pillars of the circular economy model, regenerating nature, keeping products in use and eliminating waste. Our goal is to partner with brands who want to go on that journey with us. Potential brand partners go through a thorough intake process so we can learn as much as possible about the brand. They disclose how the product is made and their labor practices,” Carolyn says. 

As CEO and company founder, Carolyn also realizes educating brands about circularity is all part of the journey, especially since many brands don’t know where to begin.

As she explains, “For most fashion brands that are interested in sustainable fashion, circular retail and the circular economy, the main focus rests heavily on how they make things but then stops at the point where the consumer buys their product. We're able to show them that there are a lot of opportunities to extend that relationship with the customer through the entire lifecycle of their products. It’s a great way to engage more customers and offer them better services.”

How can a fashion brand play a bigger role in the circular economy?

The first brand Carolyn approached to partner with Manymoons was looking to do just that. Carolyn reached out to Nature Baby, a New Zealand based company and one of the oldest GOT certified organic children’s brands in the world, and the relationship evolved from there.

According to Carolyn, “I sent Jacob, one of the co-founders of Nature Baby, a really long email, explaining what my passion was and what I saw as the future of a circular model. He immediately responded, saying ‘I've been trying to figure out how we could do this for years, but we just don't have the resources to do it. We don't know how to do it or scale it. This is not our core competency.’”

Carolyn explained to Jacob that Manymoons had in fact developed that core competency, which included everything from how to handle exception processing and returns and deal with single SKUs, along with being able to clean, resell and compost clothing. Nature Baby became Manymoons’ first brand partner and continues to be a terrific partner to this day.

“The reality is that it's really, really hard to ask brands to do everything involved in circular retail. Even though they want to participate in the circular economy, it's really difficult to actually act on that. So, it's a mutually beneficial partnership that we have with the brands who have partnered with Manymoons,” Carolyn says.

Start shopping sustainable fashion for kids now

Manymoons partners with brands who are focused on sustainability, making it easy to shop for resales and rescues, including organic baby clothes, organic kids clothes and organic clothing for adults. Manymoons.com offers hundreds of styles that are certified clean, and meet our pre-loved standard. New styles and brands are available on a weekly basis, offered for kids and baby in sizes from Newborn to 10. 

Check out our selection of Resales and Rescues to get started.