Arco was born out of a love of circularity and community.
Passing on preloved items from one family to the next has always been a cherished part of motherhood for Kate, who loves both giving and receiving from her community of mom friends. But it isn’t always easy to get the right hand-me-downs at the exact moment they are needed.
When Kate, Arco’s founder, needed new things for her quickly growing, energetic little boys, she was left with two unappealing options. The choice was to either buy new (expensive and ecologically suboptimal) or sift through all the local thrift stores hoping to find the quality she was looking for. Kate’s education and career background in sustainability made her naturally inclined to seek out second-hand items for her children. And yet she knew she was not the only parent around with a similar ethos. Kate created Arco Preloved to give local parents a third option, one that combines quality with affordability, accessibility, and eco-appeal.
Kate wanted to combine this need for an inspiring alternative for children’s items in the Barlavento region with building a community of young parents of children in their early years. The values of circularity and community are at the core of Arco.
Since moving to Southern Portugal in 2020, Kate and her boys can most often be found outdoors – climbing fig trees or building moats around sand castles on one of the Lagos beaches.