Non Chinese kids coats

[Thevoiceofreason2021]

Help, I’m trying to buy my toddler a winter coat, but I won’t buy Chinese products for ethical reasons. Does anybody have an ideas? I’ve tried ohm Lewis, Jo Jo, M&S, Frugi….or do I throw my ethics out the window? YANBU - keep your ethics YABU - get a grip and buy a coat even if it’s Chinese

Little green radicals are very ethical and have lovely coats.

You can also find the more ethical brands secondhand quite easily, so Frugi, LGR, Patagonia, Polarn o pyret etc all come up quite often on ebay.

Fair enough, I was just responding to it not being a Chinese coat. It was a present from her Nan anyway, I mostly buy second hand without really looking where things are made as we are on a tight budget.

Like others on this thread I buy second hand - it was my new year's resolution to buy no new clothes for me and the children and I've stuck to it - but I'm not so sure that it's the total ethical solution. I'm not buying unethical clothes myself but my children are still wearing them and my system relies on someone else doing so. I have wondered whether I should be buying some new clothes from explicitly ethical manufacturers to support that sector of the market and as part of showing that a demand is there. But like you I've found them so hard to find, and the prices are so galling for clothes that'll be outgrown in months (though I realise that this is because I've grown used to my clothes basically being subsidised by other people's cheap labour).

Its very hard to not buy from China, I bought a razor from Braun, but on delivery its made in China ! I thought they were a German Company.
sorry off piste a bit there

Babipur is an ethical online shop selling amazing clothes, home stuff, food, toys and heaps more - they trace the supply chain of everything they sell so I would be pretty near 100% confident that I was buying an ethically made product shopping there. They are also a family run Welsh business with excellent customer service!
www.babipur.co.uk/

www.britannical.com/

Mountain Warehouse has some non-Chinese manufactured coats

They don’t list the country of origin on their website but just looked at the label on DS’s coat and it was made in Bangladesh

Molo? Hideously expensive but I bought it one a bit large, dd wore it for 3 years and I sold it on eBay for a surprisingly huge amount

@Thevoiceofreason2021

Help, I’m trying to buy my toddler a winter coat, but I won’t buy Chinese products for ethical reasons. Does anybody have an ideas? I’ve tried ohm Lewis, Jo Jo, M&S, Frugi….or do I throw my ethics out the window? YANBU - keep your ethics YABU - get a grip and buy a coat even if it’s Chinese

Are John Lewis, JoJo, M&S and Frugi known for not using Chinese labour or Chinese cotton? I doubt it. Plenty of their stuff will be made in China, and in Bangladeshi sweatshops. Don't think a high street store is some ethical example just because their prices are high.

Very few places that are mass-market enough to have a website and thousands of items all lined up ready to ship items out to customers are going to have had them hand-stitched by little European old ladies looking to make a few bob, or woven by bright-eyed merry Belgian seamstresses. Chances are if it genuinely has been hand-made by an artisan it's about £900 and you won't find it on some bog-standard Next website.

Have you tried goodonyou.eco to check whether the stores are ethical?

Buy a second hand coat even if it is Chinese.

I believe that those down type jackets from China use feathers from live animals

The down ones are quite costly. The ones made in China are usually polyester

Kite clothing are based in Dorset, organic ethical and fairtrade. And their coats are the best waterproof snow coats my kids have worn.

Kuling kids - sweden

How about having one made? Something like this although you'd need to allow time for it to be made.

I second getting stuff second hand. Or, if you have the cash, get something handmade on etsy or similar.

www.kite-clothing.co.uk/collections/girls-clothing/outerwear

Second hand for sure. Absolute bargains to be had

The first three boys’ coats I looked at from Kite were Made in China……

GAP usually have stuff made in Vietnam and Bangladesh. Monsoon have stuff made in Turkey and India too.

Britannical make all their coats in London - it's one of the only UK-made kids brands that does tailored coats - and they use sustainable pure wool fabric across their range. (I discovered them when I bought a Suffragette scarf from them a couple of years ago - their founder is apparently a women's rights activist). Their range isn't cheap but you can't beat the quality, even compared to the likes of Gucci and D&G.

www.britannical.com

@Ozanj

GAP usually have stuff made in Vietnam and Bangladesh. Monsoon have stuff made in Turkey and India too.

Unless they explicitly track every stage of their supply chain and have some sort of fair trade or ethical certification, clothes made in Bangladesh are not any better than China. The Rana Plaza disaster happened in Bangladesh. Things still haven't improved much since then. I avoid things made in Bangladesh unless they're secondhand or the company has a certified ethical supply chain that is working with factories in Bangladesh to improve conditions for everyone.

@Rannva things don't have to be artisan or handmade to be ethical. In fact, quite a lot of handmade things aren't even if they're expensive, because hand crafts are seriously undervalued and the people making it are rarely paid enough.

It's perfectly possible to have ethical factories making mass produced stuff. If the workers have fair hours, a fair wage, proper health and safety etc.

I think Frugi is better than typical high street shops, babipur stock them and they have really high standards. Although I think Frugi might have started slipping recently.

@pompomsgalore

Second hand for sure. Absolute bargains to be had

This.

It is unethical to buy new items.

Particularly for children who will grow out of the item next year.

Mini Boden makes them all over the place but not china.

I'd echo PP and get a second hand one from eBay, then you get get something nice without having to feel bad.