Dressing to match your pet sits right on the line between adorable and absurd, and most people assume it lands on the absurd side. The counterargument is a collaboration between Little Beast and the label Memorial Day: a set of coordinated pet sweaters and human bucket hats that are genuinely well made, genuinely ethical, and, compared to what the fashion houses charge for the same crochet look, genuinely a bargain. It turns out the twee premise can survive if the clothes are actually good.
What’s in the collection
The collab pairs three pet-sweater designs with a trio of matching hats sized for people. The sweaters are pure cotton, machine-knit, and offered in six sizes that span a lot of dog, from a Chihuahua up to a Bull Terrier. And do not count your cat out; a well-cut dog sweater works on plenty of felines too, so the “matching” can extend to the whole household.
The hats are where the story gets interesting. They are cotton as well, but crocheted by hand in Indonesia by independent women artisans the brands say earn above-market pay for the work. Each hat takes roughly six hours to make by hand, which is worth remembering the moment you look at the price.
The ethics are the actual selling point
This is not fast fashion with a nice story stapled on. Both brands treat fair wages and responsible sourcing as central, not decorative. Little Beast’s founder, Jisu Kim, has been open about being deliberate over where her products come from, favoring small and local makers on the logic that more care, and a real human touch, goes into what they produce. That philosophy is why the hats cost what they cost.
And they are not cheap: the bucket hats run about $190 each. But hold that number next to the designer crochet bucket hats the luxury houses have been selling, Dior at $1,100, Prada at $995, Bottega Veneta at $2,100, and the math reframes itself instantly. For a hand-crocheted piece made over six hours by a fairly paid artisan, $190 stops looking like a splurge and starts looking like a relative steal. That is the fashion arithmetic that makes the whole thing click.
This is riding a trend that isn’t going anywhere
Coordinated knitwear for pet and person taps into a broader crochet moment that has been building on the runways rather than fading. JW Anderson sent playful crocheted pieces down a recent spring runway; Michael Kors and Moschino have both leaned into the craft; Stella McCartney sent striking crocheted maxi dresses down the Paris runway. Handmade, chunky, cottage-core crochet has firmly crossed from niche craft into mainstream fashion, which means a matching hat-and-sweater set reads less like a novelty and more like an on-trend pick that happens to include your dog.
What’s new since this launched
The collab has proven durable rather than fleeting. The Little Beast x Memorial Day pieces have expanded their reach, turning up at retailers like Anthropologie alongside the brands’ own sites, and the two labels have offered a bundle discount, a 15 percent code (MEMORIALBEAST) when you buy the matching hat and sweater together. Availability on individual colorways comes and goes, as tends to happen with handmade, limited runs, so if a specific design speaks to you, it is worth grabbing while it is in stock.
For now these pieces live on the brands’ own sites and select boutiques rather than the mass marketplaces, which fits their small-batch, made-to-last ethos. If matching your outfit to your pet’s has always struck you as a little much, fair enough. But if you were ever going to do it, this is the version that holds up: well made, fairly produced, and, by luxury standards, a bargain.
