The truth about children’s clothes

Children have a voracious need for new clothes. They will outgrow over 1000 items of clothing before they are fully grown meaning the average household in the UK will spend around £11,000 clothing each child!

And what do we do with all those clothes when they’re done? 

• An incredible 183 million items of outgrown baby clothing (not to mention all the other ages) are stashed in UK homes.  Despite best intentions to reuse them for second and third children, if they are born a different gender or season, the clothes may never see the light of day again.

• Over 30% of parents have thrown away children’s clothes because they didn’t know what else to do with them.  Yet only about 5% of those clothes are damaged. Many have never been worn.

But why is that a problem?

Kids’ clothing rarely gets enough wear before it is thrown away. It has the potential to be worn by upto 4 children - which would reduce its carbon and water footprint by up to 75% - but it’s hard to guarantee this will happen.

So, for every garment which isn’t re-used or handed on, 3 brand new garments have to be bought unnecessarily. 

So the knock on impact of the UK’s store-cupboard of 183million clothes is the purchase of 549 million garments which didn’t need to be manufactured; creating 2 million tonnes of CO2e...the equivalent of powering 200,000 homes for a year! It would take 33million tree seedlings to grow for 10 years to absorb that much carbon.

So what can we do?

Reducing the environmental and financial burden of clothing our children is getting easier and easier.  Of course there’s the tried and tested:

• Preloved sales (tend to have a glut of clothes which don’t sell well); 

• Ebay bundles (good for a bargain but can’t guarantee quality, condition or style);

• Facebook BST groups (excellent if you have the time to list your clothes);

• Charity shops which can be amazing value albeit a little hit and miss in terms of supply.

But all of these suffer from a lack of convenience and choice. So there are now a number of new services springing up which are designed to make sourcing preloved clothing and disposing of your outgrown clothes quick, convenient, and affordable. 

1. Rental

Kids’ clothes rental ensures every garment reaches its maximum potential and is never left to languish in a cupboard until it is no longer usable or desirable. Clothing is reprocessed, professionally laundered, repaired where necessary, and circulated until it reaches its rental life end...at least 4 wears and many more in the case of many garments. It can then be up-cycled into new products or donated to managed textiles recycling projects.  All things which cannot be guaranteed or controlled in the world of ownership. 

Because renting guarantees at least 4 uses of each garment, if you were to rent a modest indoor wardrobe (4 trousers, 6 tee shirts, 4 dresses/dungarees, 2 cardigans/sweaters, 2 sweatshirts), for a whole year, you could prevent three times those garments  (216 new items) from being manufactured. That’s a saving of 877kg CO2e - the equivalent of 1/10 of your household’s annual energy. 

And there are other benefits to rental besides environmental ones.

The cost saving from buying new (it normally costs about 25-33% to keep a garment for 3 months) means you can generally access more expensive ethical and sustainable clothing, from the best sustainable brands, for far less than their retail price.  And one in around every 4 garments will be brand new.  So you don’t have to compromise on style, quality or ethics for the sake of cost. Plus you can easily exchange items your kids don't like, or that don't work as you'd expected. 

It also comes with a big convenience factor. Because you send back all of the clothes you're done with in exchange for another set you don’t have to worry about sorting, storing, or selling on outgrown clothes.  And the price reflects this so there’s no risk that you’ll lose money from clothes which don’t sell on. Reminders mean you never miss a potential swap and services are designed to make it a painless process.

Rental Services we love:

• thelittleloop. Designed to be as close to a conventional purchase experience as possible, this subscription service for 2-3yrs and up offers some of the best ethical and sustainable brands (Frugi, Kite, Little Green Radicals, Jujuni), a full choice of the items rented (using a credits system), swaps every 3 months and free postage. At £50 a quarter for an average of 6 brand new items it comes in at about ⅓ the cost of buying new.  As the service matures they will offer preloved items for fewer credits increasing the amount you will get for your subscription.

• Belles and Babes. This service also offers branded items on a monthly subscription bundle basis - 18 items which you pay for on a monthly basis and swap when baby grows. Again this comes in at around ⅓ the cost of buying new (£35 per month for £300 worth of clothes). This one’s for the little-ies - bundles are available from birth to 2 years.

• Bundlee. Similar to Belles and Babes this is a monthly subscription bundle service for babies up to 2. This time though, Bundlee make their own items which allows them to offer them a little cheaper - £24 a month for 15 items. If you aren’t too fussy about the style of your baby’s basic items this is a good, cost effective option.

2. Pre-loved resale services

Again, designed for parental convenience there are an increasing number of services which allow you to send in your old clothes, and buy other, pre-loved, clothes curated for their quality and style.  They take your excellent condition pre-loved clothes in exchange for store credit or cash, saving you the hassle of having to list it and post it out in separate lots. You will take a slight hit on profit, but it’s well worth it for the convenience.

And buying from them is a breeze too.  There’s none of the risk of buying via facebook...garments will all have been quality controlled and in some cases repaired and laundered. Plus they’re listed online in a user friendly fashion to make it easier to shop.

Sustainability isn’t managed in quite the same way as rental as once the clothes have been sold  there’s no guarantee they’ll be returned again. But they do, at least, ensure clothes are given at least one new lease of life, reducing the carbon footprint of clothing by upto 50%. 

Preloved services we love:

• Pure Bundle. This service is focussed on saving time, and helping parents to get a capsule wardrobe for their kids from the best brands around. They buy clothes from parents as long as they meet their strict brand and quality requirements. And they then style them into beautifully curated capsules which they sell for around 40-50% of RRP.

• Build a Bundle. Sells preloved garments online for babies and children. All brands are stocked, including supermarket, so it isn’t as well curated as Pure Bundle and requires more sifting through, but prices are considerably lower as a result. And they will buy your own preloved bundles for a fair price.

• Loopster. Essentially the same as build a bundle but with slightly higher end brands, this was one of the first online services for second hand kids clothes.

• Eco mama and babe. This service bridges the new and preloved worlds by selling ethical and sustainable brands new, and then offering to buy them back in exchange for credit meaning it also has a steady supply of pre-loved clothing on offer too. If you send in your pre-loved clothes you can choose to use the credit to buy either new or pre-loved making it a good choice for parents who are less convinced by second hand clothing.

With all of these services on the market there should be at least one which will work for you.  In practice you might prefer a combination.  For example we like to buy basics like leggings and vests second hand from pre-loved services like build-a-bundle.  It doesn’t really matter what they look like and, as they get the heaviest wear, we don’t have to worry as much about damaging them.  And then we use rental for dresses, dungarees, applique t-shirts and outdoor wear...items which have a high cost per use when bought new, which my daughters are most concerned with the style of, and which need to be changed more due to changing seasons.

Why not give a few of them a go and let us know how you get on.

Originally posted on Party Kit Network blog.