How Saint Haven Was Born: Our Founder’s Story

I’m a San Francisco Bay Area mom of three, and for years I experienced an all-too-familiar struggle for families: the daily conflict of getting my kids dressed in the morning. Most fabrics exacerbated my children’s eczema and sensory issues, and they never seemed to feel truly comfortable in their clothing. Most days it felt like a battle to get them dressed and out the door, because way too frequently the kids were miserable in their clothes. For my kid with eczema, the wrong type of fibers, dyes, or chemical fabric additives could prompt itchy rash flare-ups that could last for weeks or even months. For my child with sensory processing disorder, coarse or stiff fabrics of any sort felt painful and constricting. Scratchy tags, synthetic fibers, rough seams, too-tight necklines—any one of these common clothing issues could derail the morning routine and affect the whole family, leaving everyone in the household frustrated and unhappy.

There’s nothing worse than seeing your child suffer. And at the end of the day, all you want is for your kid to feel secure and comfortable in his or her own skin. As parents, we all know these cardinal truths—not to mention the basic fact that when your kid feels good, you do too. Saint Haven’s clothing was born from these truths.

With the resourcefulness that I think all mothers have when it comes to their children’s comfort, I started making trips to my local craft store and lining my kids’ clothing by hand with the softest, most allergen-free organic fabrics I could find. But after several months I realized my DIY fixes weren’t going to make it for the long haul. While the handmade linings solved my kids’ softness and irritation issues temporarily, they couldn’t stand up to their growth—or the wear and tear that active kids routinely put clothes through. So I set out to find a better, more lasting solution: A sustainable fabric that redefined soft and could be made into clothing for the whole family. From knocking on the doors of fabric manufacturers to consulting high-end bed linen and lingerie boutiques, I spent years researching, experimenting, and even mixing fibers myself. I eventually tracked down some of the best, most innovative and technologically-advanced fabric houses in the world, and worked with them to create a new, unrivaled standard of soft. After spending over five years developing a brand-new, proprietary method for softening our fabric, we finally arrived at the softest, most breathable nontoxic fabric—Saint Haven SoftTM.

Using this fabric, we designed a line of clothing essentials that would be simple, beautiful, sustainable, and functional for the entire family, from newborns to parents. I included clothes for adults because when I started giving kids clothing prototypes to my friends, nearly everyone came back with the same two bits of feedback: I can’t believe how soft this is, and I wish you made this in my size. So I did. Because who doesn’t love soft clothes? I wanted cozy, elegant clothes that would stand the test of time—no designs that looked good in a photo but felt bad on skin, no unnecessary bells and whistles, no seasonal collections that disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Above all else, our clothing had to be soft. We want there to be one less thing for you to worry about when you come home. The kids aren’t crying about itchy tags on their shirts—they’re not fighting with you over what to wear. You shouldn’t have itchy tags either. We want to take this basic burden away from you. Because bottom line? We just want to make you and your kids happy and comfortable. That’s why Saint Haven exists—to take one worry out of the crazy mix of being a parent. Because when the whole family is happy, we can get on with the truly important things in life: letting go of the worries, being in the moment, and embracing our time together.