Stitched Together.

Unlike baking banana bread, there is no go-to recipe for running a business.

Petit Pli’s rise from a graduate project into a company with its own studio has been a sweet success over the last couple of years! Though, it would have been impossible without one key ingredient: community. In an effort to do our bit to protect that community, we’ve all been working from home the last 4 weeks. Needless to say, our team’s change in location hasn’t dampened our motivation to build Petit Pli into an innovation catalyst for the next generation; sustainable designs are still more important than ever - innovation cannot wait,.

Since leaving our studio, the Petit Pli team have been transferring the heat created by the friction of uncertainty to fire as much positivity into the world as possible. We momentarily pivoted from sustainable childrenswear designers & wearable technologists to comic book creators - Marvel & DC watch out! We did this as the present day is a very confusing time for our community of LittleHumans. Our comic, Mission 1: Unstick the Sticky Alien helps parents explain why LittleHumans can’t see their friends, play in the park nor see their grandparents. And while our forward thinking supply chains & partners face difficult times, we’re also working hard to ensure business as usual to continue to support them within our means, some of those partners have even returned the favour. Human kindness is going to get us all through this. We are all in this together.

The old maxim: ‘if you want to go fast go alone; if you want to go far go together’, is more relevant than ever and Petit Pli’s team spirit is hanging on through rapid-fire emails, zoom meetings, & slack messages. Fortunately for us, this time last year Petit Pli became a little less alone. In April 2019, Petit Pli was selected out of 6,640 entries from 182 countries to become the first UK winner of the Global Change Award (GCA).

The GCA is run by the H&M Foundation, it awards innovators developing sustainable solutions which stand to reduce fashion’s impact on the planet. Our co-winners were Dimpora from Switzerland, Green Nettle Textiles, from Kenya, Circular.Fashion from Germany and Le Qara from Peru. Do have a look at how each of us is working towards a singular goal from so many interesting perspectives! Since meeting in Stockholm, the 2019 winners are no longer strangers with common interests and values but have become a little family separated by borders & timezones; leaning on each other to ideate our visions & offering valuable support during the bumps, cliff drops and highs that come with entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, the 2020 celebrations were cancelled. This meant that our reunions with the 2019 winners were put on pause. But it also meant that we were not able to welcome the 2020 winners: Galy, WereWool, TextileGenesis, SeaChange Technologies, to the GCA Family in person! To congratulate their incredible success!

Over the coming weeks we want to continue spreading positivity & going far with you & our community. This is the first of our #GoingTogether updates!

Over & Out,

The Petit Pli Team