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 to the Arco founder, Kate. Kate loves both giving and receiving from her community of mama friends, but we recognise that isn’t always easy to get the right hand-me-downs at the exact moment they are needed.
When Kate needed new things for her quickly growing, energetic little boys, she was left with two unappealing options: (1) buy new (expensive and ecologically suboptimal) or (2) sift through all the local thrift stores hoping to find the quality she was looking for. Kate’s background in sustainability meant she was naturally predisposed toward option 2 and to seek out second-hand items for her children and she knew she was not the only parent in the Western Algarve with this desire. Kate created Arco Preloved to give local parents a third option, one that combines quality with affordability, accessibility, and eco-appeal. See how the Preloved Shop works here.
But Kate did not stop there and wanted to combine this new circular economy with building a community of parents, in particular mothers, in the Western Algarve. The values of circularity and community are at the core of the Arco Community today.
Today, Arco has expanded beyond the Preloved Shop to also incorporate the Arco Collective - a physical community space in the heart of Lagos for mamas, family and children to congregate, play and relate. The Collective is run by Francesca (aka Frankie), who found solace in Kate’s pre-established Arco Community network upon moving back to Lagos as a single mama with her baby. See more about the Collective here.
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.