Hello and welcome to Lilo's blog 'The Circular'

Welcome to Lilo’s The Circular

A blog dedicated to bringing you fun clothing edits; sustainable kids’ activities; tips and hacks; and keeping you informed on what’s happening in the clothing industry. 

I'm Jess, and I’m so excited to share with you another level of Lilo. It’s going to be fun, simple, informative and humble. Everything that Lilo is about. 

I thought The Circular was a well-suited name for this blog. I promise it’s not the circular you hate in your letterboxes but one you will enjoy reading through with your afternoon cuppa or while feeding your wee one. 

Lilo supports a circular fashion system and a circular economy, and we love reusing and repurposing those random things in your house like egg cartons into fun activities to do with your kids. All things that are circular. 

Hi! I'm Jess

A year ago in September 2021, I took the plunge and met with some developers and started working on Lilo. We launched on May 29 2022 and it's been a ride ever since.

I'll keep this introduction short and sweet, but you can find me in chilly (but beautiful) Dunedin, New Zealand with my small family. In my 20s I began opshopping, and buying second-hand naturally began to become a part of my life. As I prepared for the arrival of our daughter nearly everything was second-hand, and now reducing my ‘brand new’ consumption is deep-rooted within me. 

One thing I learnt about parenthood is how precious time really is! Everything takes longer and trying to get to the local opshops got harder and more exhausting. So I began buying secondhand online. But even with the internet at my fingertips, it could still take hours to trawl through online marketplaces and social media to find the right sneakers in a size 4C.

During this time, I began to sell my daughter's outgrown clothes on Instagram and, after a while I saw so many other Mums creating dedicated pages and websites for selling too. At one point I realised there were hundreds of us in NZ doing the same thing and thought, wouldn't it be cool if some of us were in the same place selling together?  Then surely I'd find sneakers in our size way quicker!

Then came the idea for Lilo.

A destination for customers to easily search across thousands of items from different sellers and make one payment, regardless of how many people they were buying from. No messaging, no bank transfers and no random meet-up to collect their purchase.

I also wanted it to be a place for passionate sellers to sell together. A platform where sellers could have their own online presence: their own URL, a logo, something that was a little fancier than a regular buy/sell platform. I wanted sellers to have the option to use it however it best suited them and their lifestyle with the option to list items daily or once a month.

Community 👯‍♀️👯‍♂️

I couldn’t have created Lilo without building friendships and trust with sellers and customers who were a part of my preloved kids’ community on Instagram.

So with community in mind, you can comment on this blog! I love reading what you have to share. It might want to add another tip, sharing an experience of yours or something else. I only ask that comments are respectful and kind. 

I hope The Circular can connect you with some fun clothing finds, teach you a thing or two and make you feel like you are a part of something. I am not an expert in any field I share information on but I hope I can summarise and package it up in a way that is entertaining and easy to digest. I will always include links to where I sourced information if you're keen to read more.

Stay tuned for our next post that's inspired by Disney - it's going to be FUN! 

I'd love for you to share what you like best about Lilo?
Is it the easy size filters, searching across multiple sellers at the same time, or something else? Tell me below 👇🏼 

x Jess