Note from our Founder
OUR STELLAR EVOLUTION
From the very beginning, Petit Pli has been on a mission to reduce emissions and waste in the garment industry. For the next generation to have a sustainable future, giving up on our mission is not an option!
As a new uncle in 2016, I - like many before me, became frustrated by how quickly my newborn nephew Viggo outgrew garments & how much waste his speedy growth created. The experience set alight the aeronautical engineer within. I had to realise a novel & responsible solution.
The solution - then a thesis project, has evolved into a fierce young company of committed researchers, designers & engineers sharing a common goal to inspire better consumption behaviours in the future of humanity through innovative designs. The past 24 months have been nothing short of stellar. Using a spoonful of imagination and a bottle of perseverance, Petit Pli has grown into a global brand, known for a slow approach to design through pairing innovation and sustainability.
Our global reach has been made possible by Petit Pli’s innovative and circular approach gaining recognition by prestigious awarding bodies in fields spanning design, engineering and fashion. These include the UK James Dyson Award, Red Dot Design Award, H&M Global Change Award and the Dezeen Award for Best Wearable Design. This recognition has served as great motivators for myself and the team. However it is the continued support from you, Petit Pli’s global community, that drives us through the hard days & inspires us to dig ever deeper to realise our vision to starve the garment industry of its problems using human centred design methodologies. Without your feedback, your advocacy, and your enthusiasm for Petit Pli’s approach & ethos, we would not be here.
Starting a business is never easy - let alone a business with sustainability at its core. It requires grit, determination & sacrifice. It should come as no surprise that raising money early in our company’s life was a challenge. I began pitching for investment in September 2017, as a fresh graduate design engineer armed with passion, supportive friends & family, a competitive solution with the potential to disrupt the garment industry’s linear & destructive system and limited business experience.
For the design solution to have a real-world impact, Petit Pli needed to progress into a commercially viable business - and fast! To catalyse the transition & win investment, many nights were spent getting to grips with the world of patents, trademarks and business models and the modest grants Petit Pli won in the summer of 2017 were used to jump-start the process of evolving our minimum viable product. In April 2018, the sacrifices, efforts and passion proved enough to secure investment from Sustainable Ventures - partners sharing our vision. This allowed Petit Pli suits to launch into the universe, right where they belong.
Since 2017, we've up-cycled approximately 12,841 PET bottles through manufacturing our innovative garments.
With your support, we’ve been able to use recycled PET bottles to make our garments, push our R&D forward in order to innovate a patent-pending design, ensure ethical manufacture in an advanced facility in Portugal where ⅓ of its energy is derived from solar panels. With a garment designed to grow through 7 sizes, we hope it’ll offer children a responsible & innovative alternative to the archaic, unethical and unsustainable alternatives.
However, Petit Pli’s vision to revolutionise how us humans - both Little and Large, use, design and value garments extend beyond childrenswear. Today, I am very excited to share that we are closer to achieving our long-term vision to clothe the future of humanity than ever before. Earlier, this year Petit Pli won investment from Sky Ocean Ventures & InnovateUK to grow Petit Pli’s agile team and start designing for those transitioning into parenthood by way of growing LittleHumans!
I can’t wait to expand Petit Pli’s horizons alongside you.
Sincerely,
Ryan Mario Yasin
Founder & CEO