With a wide array of products both online and offline, it’s great fun to shop for the kids! But sometimes you may not know where to begin. So, we’ve put together a guide to online and off-site shopping. These brands offer value for money and they’re also local, which means your purchase goes a long way towards supporting homegrown businesses, making your shopping experience much more meaningful.
Made by Singaporeans, for Singaporeans
Singapore is home to a burgeoning crop of local designers recognised for quality products that are designed with passion. Each brand is a uniquely Singaporean story.
The wide range of limited-edition products or collaborations, found only in Singapore, is especially satisfying for collectors looking for rare and exquisite merchandise for keepsakes.
Made with Passion is an initiative that showcases and celebrates local lifestyle brands, the passion, and the hard work that goes behind their pursuit of excellence. Find out more about local brands and explore Made With Passion brands on KrisShop.
1. The Animal Project
If you’re looking for knick-knacks, lunchboxes, and so on, be sure to check out The Animal Project (TAP), a social enterprise brand of quality lifestyle products featuring artwork by artists with special needs. TAP has been awarded the Made With Passion brand mark.
From a young age, Tay Jun-Yi, has been drawing beautiful pictures of animals, highlighting the subtle social interactions among the animals. His father and founder of TAP, Roland Tay, decided to channel Jun-Yi’s artistic ability into an enterprise by featuring his artworks on good quality lifestyle products and marketing them as merchandise and gifts. Together with a team of volunteers, he launched TAP to showcase and sell lifestyle merchandise featuring artworks from artists with special needs.
TAP’s range of quirky keychains, stationery, and lunch bags will delight not only children but your adult friends as well! View their collection here.
2. Le Petit Society
Trust us when we say you will fall in love with this clothing line created by Dylan and Robyn, who are parents to two delightful girls. They aim to create safe and comfortable products with every collection. Le Petit Society believes that great style is for everyone and boasts a range of clothing that is versatile, comfortable, and stylish. They are best known for their bubble tulle dresses which make little girls feel like princesses!
3. EDUPOD
Thinking of sprucing up your kids’ rooms? With over 10 years of experience and prototyping, and a recipient of the Made With Passion brand mark, EDUPOD designs fun and safe children’s spaces, from early childhood to primary school institutions. In addition, EDUPOD aims to design sustainable furniture that is not only environmentally positive but also durable! Their collections include children’s furniture, playgrounds, protections, guards, and locks. Parents, you’d be glad to know that EDUPOD has also extended their expertise into creating learning resources.
You can check out the Merly Mirror and Straits Math Play which are EDUPOD’s own wall-mounted interactive toys or view the full range here.
4. doob® Bean Bags
Fancy some beanbags for the kids? doob® Bean Bags, also awarded with the Made with Passion brand mark, makes comfortable, safe, long-lasting, and easy to clean bean bags. Your kids are sure to love the bright and colourful exteriors of the bean bags like the doobsta’ versatile fabric bean bag. As the co-founder Shane Low says, “doob® Bean Bags is a very excitable personality that shows enthusiasm, curiosity, and an irreverent sense of humour.” No surprises there, given their brand mission is “Saving the world, one butt at a time!”
As a child, Shane always wanted a beanbag but the only ones he found were either ugly, expensive, or of poor quality. So doob® Bean Bags are designed with features like air vents, safety zippers, a durable inner bag, and a removable washable cover. All these come together to make doob® Bean Bags a hit with parents, and even pet owners! doob® Bean Bags are available on KrisShop’s With Love, SG Store’.
5. Hegen
If you’re looking for the perfect feeding bottles, you will love Hegen’s BPA-free, lightweight and ergonomic milk bottles and products (awarded Made with Passion brand mark) Founder, Yvon Bock, a mum of four herself, founded Hegen with the vision of offering simple, practical, and innovative products for children.
Hegen’s star product is the Sqround (square-round) PCTO™ Feeding Bottle, which features their patented one-handed Press-to-Close, Twist-to-Open innovation. The sqround aesthetic helps with babies’ motor skills, optimises space, and reduces the chance of the bottle rolling away or milk spilling. Hegen’s bottle teats are also designed to closely mimic a mother’s lactating breast, and the off-centre teat design promotes upright feeding to reduce the risk of milk back-flow.
You won’t be disappointed with Hegen’s range of high-quality, stylish and multi-functional baby feeding bottles! After all, mum knows best, so you can trust Yvon on this!
6. Sea Apple
Sea Apple is a local design-led modern clothing brand for children curating the best of children’s clothing, books, toys, furniture, and essentials. The shop is named after the Sea Apple tree – simple yet sturdy and one of the ten most common trees in Singapore. Drawing inspiration from its namesake, Sea Apple’s collections are inspired by simple observations of life. They believe in telling stories via their designs and seeking to create collections that are honest, imaginative, and above all, joyful.
The clothes are comfortable and come in refreshing, unique designs. You can check out their website but do visit the physical store in United Square. Your kids will love its cosy ambience!
8. The Elly Store
The Elly Store is a Singapore multi-label online and physical retailer, curating a wide range of children’s shoes, toys, clothing, and gifts. Elly’s clothing line offers fashion without compromising comfort and practicality. We especially love that they make matching clothes for the entire family. In their Disney range, they showcase Singapore in their signature Road Trip Mickey print, using familiar icons we grew up with, like our favourite ice-cream cart and the cable car, to contemporary icons like Marina Bay Sands. “Designing this range gave us the chance to tell the story about who we are as a Singaporean brand,” says founder, Audrey. Many Singaporean mums say the Elly Store is their go-to for Chinese New Year outfits that are oh so cute and can be worn throughout the year! Have a look at their catalogue on KrisShop’s With Love, SG Store.
So, Mums and Dads, the next time you go shopping for kids, do think about supporting our local retailers on With Love, SG. You might be surprised at just how much they have in store!