We're a husband and wife team that has developed a unique range of clothing for children with 'Sensory Processing Disorder', other sensory difficulties and skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis.
- This fundraiser is to help fund additional production with the sole purpose of providing sensory-friendly clothing to low-income familes free of charge.
The Kanna range will fulfil a demand in the market for sustainable sensory clothing that is simply not available in the UK. The clothing range will available to purchase through our website launching in May 2025. We also want to offer the same quality clothing to low income families who simply cannot afford them. We call this service 'Kanna Cares' - and that's where we need your support.
We are using loan funding to progress to manufacture (first production run starts in February 2025 and will take approx. 8 weeks). However we are seeking funds to extend the production run and make a proportion of the clothing we produce available to low-income families across the UK at low or no cost (subject to income status).
Let us explain.
WHY IS A RANGE OF CLOTHING NEEDED?
Sensory issues affect a huge number of children, often those with ADHD or autism. As the term suggests these issues can affect your senses.
Clothing is often a challenging area. We know this from experience, as parents of two neurodiverse children with sensory processing difficulties. Our story really began with our daughter, a gorgeous young lady who wanted to wear clothes that her peers were wearing but simply couldn’t tolerate them. Frills, bulky seams, scratchy fabrics, care labels, would all affect her massively.
Until now the options for sensory-friendly clothing have been extremely limited. We know because we’ve tried everything we can find across the globe! What has been available is typically quite drab, existing in basic styles (forget partywear!), in basic colour options and is often hideously expensive. Sometimes the ‘sensory’ elements are more of a nod to being sensory-friendly and just have not offered enough of a difference.
Because sensory-clothing hasn’t been readily available, mostly children are having to tolerate clothing which makes them feel bad – parents simply removing tags or turning clothes inside out so the bulkier inner seams aren’t touching the skin.
[Image: prototypes showing planned future design styles]
WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OVERCOME THIS?
We have spent many thousands in developing a range of clothing that children can wear in comfort - and that is both sustainable and attractive to wear.
Seams: Every stitch and seam has been very carefully constructed to be of minimal feel while still ensuring durability of the garment. It's been one of the most difficult part of the design. Initially we tried to find 'the stitch' which worked across all garments. But it was more complicated than that. Certain stitches were flat but scratchy and others were smooth but added bulk. So we now assess every stitch on every garment, and choose the best option for that piece. The goal is always to reduce the feel of the seam so it's as flat and smooth and soft as possible.
Waistbands: We tried many designs to get this right! We wanted minimal feel – nothing to dig in at all. Our skirts feature a very stretchy thin elastic wrapped in a soft organic cotton blend.
Tags and labels: Of course we have no physical tags on our clothing, with just simple digital screen printed care instructions in the inside of each garment. There is literally no feel on this type of print.
Easy-on: All our clothing is easy to get on. No faffing around with anything fiddly!
Simple, beautiful designs: While sensory comfort is priority number one, through print and colour we've created a collection with something for every child – plain colours, stars, stripes and wiggles!
Fabrics: We use a high proportion of Organic Cotton in all our garments. Our chosen fabric for this launch range is a beautiful OEKO TEX certified 95% Organic Cotton and 5% Elastane. Our fabric is carbon peach finished on the inside for extra softness. This is an environmentally-friendly process we've chosen in place of highly unsustainable silicone garment washes favoured by other retailers. This extra finish does add cost but it's worth it. The fabric has been tested to destruction (mud, ketchup, ice-cream and more) and the fabrics have not only lasted but got even better over time.
MAKING KANNA AVILABLE TO LOW INCOME FAMILIES
The production is, sadly, expensive. The factory we are working with is in Portugal, one of only a handful across the globe we have found that is actually capable of making our complex garments. We are also using soft organic cotton with a carbon peach finish to make the clothing wonderfully comfortable. And due to the high minimum order quantities, the unit cost to manufacture a tee shirt (for example) is around £20. This means at retail our clothes will be a fraction more than high street prices – but more afforable than the limited choice of overseas options currently available.
However the clothes are also durable. Our daughter has been wearing a prototype skirt and tee shirt for nine months - washed and dried 4 or 5 times a week, as these are the only clothes she can comfortably wear. The garments look as good today as they did when they were made.
We know that it's a price point many families can afford and will be happy to pay as there are few other options available for their children.
But we also know that low-income families cannot afford our clothes – despite their children really needing them.
That's why:
- we are committing our profit to funding clothing at low or no cost to families on income support and those claiming job seeker allowance.
- we have launched this fundraiser to extend production beyond our current budget to create additional clothing we can also provide to those families.
We call this Kanna Cares, and families can contact us and we will assess each family and hope to provide as many as possible with free clothing.
To fund this we are seeking:
a) donations that we can use to increase production and make this additional clothing available at no cost (where possible) or part-funded, depending on need.
b) ploughing profits into additional production for the same purpose.
We are funding production using loan funds, and will pay off the loan via sale of clothing via our website.
THE LAUNCH RANGE
We’ve got a great launch collection for boys and girls aged 5 to 14 years prepared, which has been sampled and tested, and retested and resampled many times.
We're now at final prototype stage with t-shirts, long-sleeve tees, dresses and two styles of skirt - and production will formally start end of Feb 2025. We will create 4 styles of tee shirt and 3 styles of dress in our first run. Income from sales will then help us fund production of long sleeve tees and skirts... which we estimate to cost £65,000 – and we've joggers, leggings and cardigans nearing final prototype stage.
Your donations are vital to enable us to support families in need. We will reward every donor with a discount on products in addition to allocating your funds to Kanna Cares. Thank you so much.