Our Story
Hi, I'm Tiffany, a former elementary school teacher, wife, and mother of two young children. I live in Williamsburg with my husband, two little ones, and our big dog, Bane. In the summer of 2018, as I was boxing up the newest lot of our two-year-old's outgrown baby clothes I suddenly became very aware of all the boxes of outgrown baby clothes just sitting there in our daughter’s closet. Most of the cute little items sitting in those boxes were only worn a few times, some not at all (cringe), before our daughter outgrew them.
Tiffany Beardsley, CEO & Founder
Being a generally curious person, I immediately wondered how many other parents could possibly have closets just like the one I was staring into. So, naturally, I Googled it and down the rabbit hole, I went. According to Statista, 3.95 million kids were born in the same year as our daughter, in the United States alone. So, if even 10% of those kids had similar closets, moving from 2T to 3T, with about 200 items since birth, then that meant there were 79,000,000 articles of amazing, like-new baby clothes just sitting in closets. Yikes.
Later, I’d learn that the average article of clothing used about 1000 gallons of water to produce. So, the math translated to 79,000,000,000 (79 billion) gallons of precious, precious water being used to grow, dye, and treat clothing just (inhale) sitting (exhale) in closets. Then I started thinking in terms of wasted dollars and I began to feel guilty, of course, because that's what this mom does. And remember, these numbers are only based on 10% of the 3.95 million kids born in the USA by age two. The waste was undeniable.
The more I researched the more I became aware of how unsustainable the fashion industry actually was. I learned terms like fashion circularity and sustainable fashion. With few options that seemed to truly contribute to circularity or sustainability or save our family any type of money, a fire began to burn. I saw this situation as a call to action: Create a clean and welcoming space where the most fiscally, environmentally, and socially responsible shoppers can connect with like-minded souls and use their perfect clothing sitting in their closets as currency for clothes they do want.
And voila, ThreadLocal360 was born!