About Merle Kids
What kind of clothes do kids want to wear? Most importantly, they want clothes they can move in. Clothes they can kick around, roll, run and jump in! Many kids also love bright colours and want the patterns on their clothes to represent their interests; animals, machines, monsters, stars, you name it!
But babies and children don’t care about what is supposed to be boy clothes and girl clothes! Many boys love pink and many girls love tractors until they are told they shouldn’t, for some reason.
Merle makes the clothes kids want to wear! Clothes that tell fun stories, clothes that children of all genders will love and want to wear time and time again.
Another thing kids want is a healthy planet. Fresh air and happy communities. So, for them and for all of us, I try to be as sustainable as I can. For more information about Merle’s commitment to the environment, visit our Sustainability Page.
The Spring-Summer 2022 collection is 100% organic cotton (as a young and small company Merle is not yet GOTS certified). The products are entirely made in a Portuguese manufacture that is organic and fair certified. The handmade products are sewn in beautiful Leipzig, Germany, with organic cotton fabric (95% cotton, 5% elastane) that is produced in Germany under fair conditions. I avoid plastic whenever possible, and I pride ourselves on running a vegan company.
About the Founder and Designer, Gaëlle Lalonde
Flashback to 2014, my son is two years old, and he knows what he wants to wear: bright colours, especially purple and pink, and clothes with fun patterns on them!
Well, I already know I can’t look in the boys’ section of any department store for that, and the girls’ section, full of frills and uncomfortable designs, doesn’t match his or my taste either.
When my daughter is born a year later, questions keep popping up in my mind: “Why do children have to bear those stereotypes? Why are dinosaurs, tractors and sports just for boys, while horses, mice and flowers are only for girls?”
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At that time, a new mom of two fresh out of illustration school with a passion for textiles, I was wondering what my future would be made of until it dawned on me: I would create the clothes my kids would love to wear, clothing that let kids be kids!
In 2018, after a lot of research and a couple of false starts, I launched my first legging collection. For the first four years, I sewed all my products myself, a few thousands of them! First in a corner of my bedroom, before eventually moving into a lovely studio, I developed the initial four different designs and three sizes to over 30 different products and five sizes, from 0 to 7 year old!
The next big chapter started in the spring of 2022, when the first collection entirely made in factory was launched, with even more sizes! It’s a wonderful and exciting adventure to slowly see Merle morph into what I dreamed it could be and to be part of a movement that encourages kids to be themselves, free of gender norms!