TradeUp with Jackalo - Clothes Your Kids can Grow With
If I’ve bemoaned the struggle of keeping up with a child’s growth spurts once, I’ve bemoaned it a dozen times. And doing so sustainably from brands who care about our kids and our planet? Don’t even get me started. It’s a seemingly impossible quest that parents unwittingly undertake the moment they bring new life into the world.
Sounds dramatic, but the fact that our kids rapidly grow through 0-12 size ranges in a matter of years is hard for any one (or any wallet) to digest. There are the children’s capsule wardrobes, the thrift store dives where you find clothes you feel better about discarding later, the clothes that claim to “grow with” your child — but you know what’s hard to find? Brands that harken back to the true roots of slow fashion: brands that mend, reuse, and recycle their own pieces to both reduce waste and increase their own pieces’ lifespan.
Brands like Jackalo.
You’ve heard about Jackalo before if you’ve been around this space for long. I shared several winters ago about their durability and practicality during our first winter in the RV (and look at how tiny E & M look!). Their pants from that blog post were staples in their wardrobe for several years, and now that they’ve finally outgrown them, I was excited to be able to take advantage of Jackalo’s TradeUp Program for myself.
TradeUp for Your Kids
Here’s how it works:
Buy your first Jackalo piece (or two or three)…
Let your kids wrestle, jump, climb, bike ride, dance, twirl to their hearts content
When the pieces are damaged or don’t fit anymore, simply email Jackalo and arrange to ship the old pieces back to be mended, repaired, and resold for a discount
Enjoy your $15 discount for using TradeUp towards a brand new piece your child can love in the coming years
Here’s why it’s special:
This isn’t a regular recycling program where your textiles are sent to a center to be sorted and used for whatever the center deems fit (house insulation, to be torn up and turned into a new fabric, etc…I wrote a whole guide to Textile Recycling if you’re interested). No, this program is a true implementation of circular economy. And since their pieces are made of only organic, traceable fabrics, they’re even easier to upcycle and, eventually recycle (or biodegrade).
Taking responsibility for their own product and the potential waste it could create if not treated properly, Jackalo accepts their pieces back into the studio to give them new life and sends them off into new homes for other children to enjoy (at a discount!). It’s the culmination of slow AND sustainable fashion and I’m here for it.
Marianna, the brand’s founder and designer, is a mama herself and knows that the common tragedy of continually buying poorly made clothes for children as they tear them up or outgrow them just isn’t sustainable for the planet or our budgets. So she’s created an alternative. This system is among the only of it’s kind (I’d love to be pointed in the direction of other slow fashion brands that use the mend/upcycle system for their customers!) and voting with our dollars in this way is how we keep small circular economies like this moving forward.
My girls are not taught to “play lightly” or take it easy on their clothes. They’re active, messy, normal children that run their way through clothes as fast as they devour their dessert. I let them wrestle each other, pick flowers in the brambles, play in the dirt, snow, water, and through it all, Jackalo’s pieces remain the most durable I’ve tried. Not to mention, any time my girls can do all of the above in a dress that lets them move through their own imaginations, it’s an extra win.
If your kiddos (aged 4 - 14) are in need of some neutral, durable clothes with play and real life built into the design — click here to shop my favorites from Jackalo.
*Thank you to Jackalo for sponsoring this post! In full transparency, I will make a small commission off any sales made through this post. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible!*
