Our Story
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Tiffany Beardsley, CEO & Founder
Hi, I'm Tiffany the founder and CEO of Thread Local 360. I am a former public school teacher living in Williamsburg with my husband, two little ones, and our giant dog. Thanks for taking a moment to learn a bit more about the game-changing retail model I created for all of us to enjoy. Our story is one of happenstance and being open to possibility.
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 were only worn a few times, some not at all (cringe) before our daughter outgrew them.
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, in the United States alone, 3.95 million kids were born in the same year as our daughter. 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 billion articles of amazing, like-new baby clothes just sitting in closets. Yikes.
Later, I learned that the average article of clothing used about 500 gallons of water to produce. So, the math translated to 39.5 trillion 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 just what some moms do. And remember, these numbers are only based on 10% of the 3.95 million kids born in the USA in 2016. The waste was so overwhelming.
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 the 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 feel good and look great in.
And voila, Thread Local360 was born!