Jackalo

Jackalo is a direct-to-consumer children's apparel brand that designs durable play clothes for active kids using organic cotton, deadstock, recycled and upcycled fabrics. Its assortment covers tops (t-shirts, polos, sweatshirts, camp shirts), bottoms (reinforced-knee pants), dresses and jackets, with typical website prices ranging from roughly $28 for graphic t-shirts to about $145 for a jacket. Product design emphasizes reinforced knees and pockets, longer inseams to accommodate growth spurts, adjustable waistbands, flat seams and easy on/off construction, gender-neutral styling, and GOTS-certified organic cotton without added chemical fabric treatments such as PFAS or formaldehyde.

The company positions itself as "America's first circular clothing brand," designing every item to be bought back, repaired, resold, recycled or composted at end of life for a family. Its TradeUP program takes back outgrown garments in exchange for credit toward future purchases, with returned items resold through a Pre-Loved collection, and the brand offers a six-month repair warranty on garments that rip. Production scraps are reused for accessories. Garments are made in fair trade certified facilities in India and Portugal, with the company stating supply-chain transparency from fiber to finished product.

Jackalo has been covered by outlets including WWD, Forbes, Glamour, Business Insider, The Washington Post, Romper, Motherly, Shopify, Nasdaq, The Good Trade and Conscious Life & Style, generally for its durability features, trade-in program and circularity model.

Founding story

Founder Marianna Sachse, who has a background in public health and social work focused on communication and describes herself as a lifelong maker and environmentalist, started the company after her first child outgrew the hand-me-down phase around age four. She found that fast-fashion children's clothing wore out quickly under active play while higher-end brands often used blended fabrics that limited durability and recyclability, and she was frustrated by a lack of hand-me-downs for her younger son. She set out to combine old-fashioned garment quality with systems for repair, reuse and recycling. Company materials state Jackalo was founded in 2020; the Techstars company profile lists a founding year of 2017. Sachse has said she designed the line with daycare use in mind because one of her children was in daycare when she started the company.

Business model

Direct-to-consumer sale of children's apparel through the company's own online store, combined with a take-back loop: the TradeUP program accepts outgrown garments in return for credit or discounts on future purchases, and returned items are repaired and resold through a Pre-Loved collection or recycled/upcycled.

Revenue comes from online sales of kids' apparel at listed retail prices (for example, t-shirts around $35-$38, pants around $69, reclaimed-denim "Broken In" pants at $119 and a jacket at $145), supplemented by resale of traded-in pre-loved garments.

Traction

Coverage across national outlets including WWD, Forbes, Glamour, Business Insider, The Washington Post and Nasdaq; founder named a 2023 Nasdaq Milestone Maker and selected for the Techstars Accelerator; a Techstars company profile lists the company at seed stage with 1-10 employees.

Latest developments

Jackalo launched Jackalo Broken In, a three-piece capsule of jackets and pants made from post-consumer cotton denim and reclaimed shirting fabric, in partnership with textile recycler Bank & Vogue; the pieces are listed on the site at $145 for the Billie jacket and $119 for the Jules and Ash pants. The site is currently merchandised around back-to-school assortments.