Advice on where to Buy Baby Clothes

[YummyMummyBear]

Hi There

I have spent a fortune on buying baby clothes (fairly expensive to) and i have found that very few last the wear and tear and the washer and dryer!

Any advice on where is best to buy good quality clothes...

Baby Gap are always really durable, and M & S.

I have always found GAP to be good and long lasting

Tesco is good considering the price

I JUST DON'T TUMBLE DRY BABY CLOTHES - HAVE FOUND THAT IS THE BEST WAY TO KEEP THEM NICE. SIL TUMBLE DRIES EVERYTHING AND ALL THE CLOTHES SHE HAS PASSED ON TO US ARE REALLY SHABBY AND HAVE SHRUNK/GONE OUT OF SHAPE.

My baby clothes never wore out before they were outgrown! But I never use a tumble drier. How about line drying things instead?

Next stuff wears well but Tesco and Asda are so cheap that it hardly matters if the stuff doesn't last forever, just get some more!

I was going to say it depends on your budget, but to be honest babies and toddlers grow so quickly that unless you're committed to selling them on ebay later, there's no point in forking out loads on new baby clothes.

Asda and Tesco are a great place to start - their designs are based on what Next and Gap are bringing out the same season.

Primark is also very good quality, dirt cheap and about as fairly traded as you're going to get on the high street cos most if not all of their stuff is made in Portugal rather than a sweat shop somewhere.

H&M were great for my ds, but I've not been there in the last couple of years.

Do a Google for sites that offer new and nearly new baby clothes. Some sellers will buy up huge swathes of brand new stock from designer shops closing down and sell them cheap online. Other site sell second hand using a star system so you know how worn the clothes are. I've used Smile By Post loads of times and got some alsot brand new Monsoon, Next and Zara stuff.

Mackays has also just had a revamp and seems to have much nicer childrens and babywear - tht mighht be a regional store though?

Vertbaudet are also good quality, but agina very slim fitting.

i prefer next, they still look like new when i pass them on... well newish..lolxx i buy loads of t.shirts from george at asda though they start at about 75p ! my los never run out of t.shirts

at baby clothes wearing out. And somebody needing to spend a fortune on them. I had tons bought and they all either got stained really badly or were quickly outgrown. What sort of thing are you buying? My DD is 2 and is wearing 12-18 handmedowns that she has had for a year. T-shirts tend to be the worst thing for wearing, going shapeless etc but I wouldn't spend a fortune on them because they are easily spoilt by a raspberry ice-lolly.

For DD the things that have worn really well are denim/cotton pinafore dresses that can be worn with a t-shirt/jumper underneath.

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Debenhams clothes are good quality, as are Gap, vertbaudet, M&S, Boden & Monsoon.
Monsoon have a lot of childrens clothes reduced atm.

i find next clothes wear really well and look like new, even when they have been washed, worn, dirtied a million times!

I've found sainsbury's tu range to be pretty good quality, but gap is the overall long-term winner, even if I buy it 2nd hand mostly. I don't use a dryer tho'.

I have usually stuck to next which i suppose are rather expensive.. I think i am not gonna just stick everything in the dryer.. maybe thats what i am doing wrong. I have just moved to Southern Ireland and we dont have asda, well we dont have George clothes but at 75p a T Shirt i am gonna get my sister to send loads over - who cares if baby spills juice all over them!! lol

Also am gonna check out Baby Gap! Never been in...

another one to vote baby gap and next clothes as brilliant quality, only put denim in the dryer, all my dds clothes are still good as new, also love monsoon, and oililly, though their stuff can be really expensive, but it lasts for ever.

john rocha at debenhams always wear well. worth the money.

Hi, I know this thread really isn't about this and I don't want to hijack it, but I felt I had to reply to Bobsmum; Having just given up a career wroking for a UK high street retailer, I can absolutely assure you that Primark clothes are NOT as fairly traded as you are going to get on the high street. Granted, there are very few companies on the high street (with the possible exception of M & S) who actually even have any sort of policy regarding ethical employment or production of garments, but Primark fall very near the bottom of the scale. The prices charged by primark are so low, some one somewhere is getting severely ripped off! Primarks prices are far too low to be paying any factory workers a fair wage, or to be using top of the range ethical factories. Please don't kid yourself that they are not expoiting the workers simply because some of their items are made in Portugal.
Right, off my soap box . I really hope you don't mind me saying this, I'm new here and wouldn't want to offend anyone. For the record, I started out with really good intentions of having fairly traded ethical baby clothes, but it's too expensive!

I know somebody that works for Primark and the reason they sell the clothes so cheap is because they buy for example loads of tee-shirts in bulk and then can sell them off dead cheap and still make a good profit.

Hi There,
You're right that buying huge quantities does help keep the price low, and primark quantities are massive like you say. Also the huge quantities sold by Primark allows them to take a smaller profit margin than another company. However the garments still need to be manufactured, and regardless of quantity, there is a limit to how cheap a garment can be in order for everyone involved in its production to have been paid a fair wage, and the price paid for a Primark garment falls well below that level. Primark do not pride themselves on any ethical policies, they pride themselves on being cheap and increasingly on being well designed.

Ethical Consumer magazine gives Priamrk it's highest rating for its supply chain code of conduct. Primark is also a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Unfortunately its parent company is not quite so ethical which is why it got a low rating last year in an ethical index survey. M &S was thrid worst in the UK next to Mark One.

Have a look at the Good Shopping Guide or go Gooshing. We're trying to change out shopping habits - definitely avoiding Gap like the plague, but I still need to do a lot of digging

Hi Bobsmum,
You are a better woman than I! I have just checked my ethical shopping guide to find it's shamefully three years out of date, also I had never heard of gooshing until just now! However I just tried it, but haven't found anything on Primark, or childrens clothes, any tips?
I was talking as an industry insider, and I have a very dim view of how the whole high street treats its suppliers, and the general attitude towards ethical policies regarding the treatment and pay of factory workers etc. I have to say though that I have not had any direct experience of Primark, I have never worked for them nor actually been to any factories used by them, so I completely accept that my experience in this regard is limited, and I shouldn't have sounded so authoritative I worked for a well known company and have seen some dreadful factories, which were regarded as show-pieces, and it is well known that the underage workers come out after the customer visits, etc etc.
The only company I have come across in my time in the industry with any serious system for trying to reduce the possibility of bad working conditions, underage workers etc etc was M & S, but my experience was several years ago and I had heard that things had changed. Also I should point out that at this time M & S did treat their direct suppliers like s*it, screwing price down, rejecting completed orders for nothing, but still demanding high standards from the factories etc that the suppliers dealt with.

I have climbed down from my cock soap box and hope you accept my apology for sounding so arrogant!!

Ooops, I meant to write cocky soap box! Sorry!

M&S seem to no qualms about screwing over companies in this counrty, (THIS IS MY OPINION, BASED ON MY OWN EXPERIENCE) [paranoid, moi?]

Wow! I just learned a lot about ethical shopping... and who else fancies a go on a cock (sic) soap box when someone entrepreneur (ethical ones only, please) gets round to reading this thread! Seriously, though, has made me think about my shopping habits... Thank you for hijacking thread!

With regard to buying cheaply, yummymummybear, why not use eBay? I buy all my kids stuff there and you can get superb bargains and the quality (if you shop sensibly) can be excellent!

yummymummy I had a 3-pack of babygrows from M&S that lasted through three children and were still nice enough to pass on.
Never tumble dry anything tho (except washable nappies).
Also GAp Ts keep their shape well. and Boden but wouldn't buy that for a baby (too dear). Worth is for older children tho as opposed to Primark/Asda (seams drift, clothes bobble, necklines stretch).