Our Autumn Wardrobe from Lottie & Lysh

As the days begin to get shorter, the wind starts keeping me up at night and the skies pour buckets, I sadly start packing away all the cute baby shorts and tiny rompers from the summer, knowing they’ll never be used by me again. After battling infertility, we’ve accepted that William will be our only child. I’m an only child too, so I have no prospect of nieces or nephews on the horizon. Packing up clothes always makes me a little bit sad and nostalgic – he’s growing so fast! – but on the bright side, it means I get to go shopping. I love shopping, and what’s better than regular shopping? Shopping for cute kids clothes, that’s what!

At 18 months, in the 98th percentile for weight and height, he’s just on the upper end of 18-24 month clothing and still in that beautifully cute easily dressed phase where absolutely everything looks adorable on him. It might be dark and cold, I might be sad about packing away these shorts, but I’m also excited about a whole new autumn and winter wardrobe (because absolutely nothing from last winter fits!). My bank balance (and husband) are not quite as excited as I am, but shhh… let’s not mention it to them yet.

I’m on a bit of a mission to find new clothes and sellers so I started scouring the internet looking for small businesses to support. The reason I want to support small creators are

• I run a small business myself whilst juggling a family, so I want to support others in my position
• Supporting British business puts more money direct into the local economy
• Small businesses offer a more personal service and better customer service
• Small businesses often have ridiculous quality goods and great attention to detail
• Small businesses have unique fabrics and designs
• Small businesses often stock organic, which is something that’s very important to me (and I’ve talked about why)

Whilst delving into the depths of google (with a fair chunk of Instagram on the side) I stumbled across Lottie & Lysh (Note, that’s a referral link that gets you £5 off your first order… read more below to find out about that!). This Cornish small business, run by mum Lottie and her small team has been up and running since Spring 2015 and provides hand-made and British printed leggings, shorts, rompers, dresses, jackets and accessories. They have an active Facebook page (responded to a query I had within a few hours) as well as a large community group where other customers are constantly posting their purchases to tantalise (and taunt) you (as well as some pre-loved sales).

I was really drawn to the array of fabrics available and the jackets especially caught my eye with some very unique and adorable bunny and dinosaur designs. Sometimes I feel with having a boy that I am a little bit more limited. No pretty dresses, frills and ruffles – but I’m not going to be limited to drab colours and plain fabrics either, like a lot of mainstream clothes stores would like. My son brings me joy and I want to reflect that – and his personality – in his clothes. I also believe in buying organic where possible, and choosing companies that are creating clothes ethically.

In my first ordered I purchased 6 pairs of leggings and a Dino jacket, complete with head spikes naturally.

I’ve found some great dungarees, thick jogging pants and jeans in some of my favourite high street stores, but finding leggings for boys on the high street seems like a next level challenge. So that’s why I went a bit nuts!

Here are the fabrics I chose for my leggings, prices in 18-24 months:

Organic Rusty Lynx Jersey Leggings – £16

Organic Festive Leaves Winter Weight Jersey Leggings – £16

Bug Hunt Jersey Leggings – £16

Lion Noir Jersey Leggings – £16

Shipmates Leggings – £12.75

Webs Jersey Leggings – £16

And of course my Dinosaur Land Dino Jacket, with mustard lining (you can customize this as you please but I LOVE mustard in the autumn) – £44

I am over the moon with the quality of the fabric, the colour, the styling, stitching and the fit is great too.

I’ve included the prices above so you can see what I paid, and I think it’s worth every penny. Because Lottie & Lysh have a loyalty club, this also netted me £10 off my next order in loyalty points and I used their referral scheme to get a nice discount of £5 on my order. If you’re thinking about signing up, please consider using this link which contains my referral code, so I’ll get £5 off my next order as well as you. Win win for both of us!

In my second order I purchased 2 long sleeved sweatshirts, ideal for the colder weather. These were both custom mixes that I chose from the available fabrics. I PMed my order to Lottie through the Facebook page, and she set me up a custom cart where you just click and pay. She can do a lot of different things, so there’s no need to be limited by the pre-set designs on the website. If you’re in the Facebook group you’ll soon get loads of ideas!

Penguin sweatshirt with custom black sleeves – £19

Lion Noir sweatshirt with white on one side, black on the other – £19

In my third order (I really hope my husband doesn’t see this) I purchased a charlie jacket in aged 2-3 years, in a new fabric called Winter woods that was previewed on the Facebook group and hasn’t even made it to the website yet, priced at £41. There’s a 3 week turnaround on these so I’m still waiting for that right now, and I sized up so this one should take us all the way through to the summer. I’ll post pics when it arrives!

Lottie & Lysh had no idea I was a blogger when I placed my order or when I messaged them on Facebook with a query, I received no discount or incentive for writing this post and just wanted to share my experiences and some photos with you. My link – Lottie & Lysh – does generate a £5 off £15 discount for you when you use it, and rewards me for referring you as well. So if you place an order through this list, you’ll be funding some of William’s summer wardrobe, which I really appreciate, as well as supporting this fabulous small business.