There must be a special law of nature that makes children grow out of their clothes approximately five minutes after we've bought them. You finally find the perfect little dungarees and then, almost overnight, the legs are too short and you're back to figuring out what fits and what doesn't.
It's a familiar (and sometimes exhausting) cycle. But just because they outgrow their clothes doesn't mean those clothes stop being useful.
I grew up as the youngest of three, which meant that quite a few of my clothes had already lived a life before they reached me. T-shirts, sweaters, trousers. My mom didn't think of it as circular fashion. It was simply how things worked in our family. And I suspect many of us grew up the same way.
Long before circularity became a word used by the fashion industry, parents were saving baby clothes for the next child, passing coats between cousins and exchanging bags of outgrown pieces with friends.
At The Simple Folk, this is part of how we think about making clothes: not only how carefully they're designed and produced, but how many lives they might have after leaving our hands.
If a garment is made to last for years, shouldn't we make it easier for more than one child to enjoy it?
Passing clothes on isn't always simple. Perhaps there isn't a younger sibling waiting for the next size. Perhaps friends and family don't need what your child has outgrown. Or perhaps there's a little pile of clothes sitting in a cupboard, waiting for you to find the time to decide what to do with them.
That's where our partnership with Manymoons comes in.
Manymoons is a certified B Corp dedicated to keeping clothes in circulation through resale, repair, collection and responsible material recovery. Together, we've created a circular shop and a Give Back programme for The Simple Folk, so that when your child has finished wearing something, we can help it find its next home.
You can send back your outgrown Simple Folk pieces, whatever their condition. Garments that can be worn again are professionally inspected, cleaned and repaired where needed, before being prepared for another family.
And when a garment really has reached the end of its wearable life? Manymoons assesses its materials to determine the most appropriate next step, whether that's mechanical recycling, repurposing or, where the composition allows, composting. For us, taking responsibility means considering the whole life of a garment, not just the moment it leaves our hands. And because we know how quickly the days fill up between nursery drop-offs, laundry baskets and bedtime stories, we've tried to make the process as simple as possible.
Here's how our Give Back programme works:
- Request your Give Back bag through the Manymoons page.
- Fill it with your outgrown Simple Folk pieces, in any condition, and return it using the prepaid shipping label.
- Receive 20% store credit towards your next purchase, while Manymoons takes care of finding the most suitable next step for each garment.
Perhaps the loveliest part of passing things on, is making space for everything that's still to come, while giving what we've already loved the chance to become part of someone else's story.
Discover our Manymoons partnership and Give Back programme
