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Winter flora: the<br />
FLWRDWN padded<br />
jacket will keep you<br />
cosy and salve<br />
your conscience.<br />
And no, it doesn’t<br />
require watering<br />
PANGAIA<br />
Blooming<br />
genius<br />
Meet the company making amends for fashion’s<br />
ethical failures, starting with a gift of flowers<br />
Winter may be behind us, but<br />
that’s not the only reason to<br />
pack away your puffer jacket,<br />
especially if it’s filled with<br />
goose or duck down. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
fluffy feathers have been used<br />
for centuries by humans as an<br />
effective source of insulation<br />
– as well as by birds, of course,<br />
and some dinosaurs for around<br />
150 million years – but as<br />
awareness grows that a large<br />
amount of down is plucked<br />
from live animals, leaving<br />
painful open wounds, clothing<br />
brands are seeking a kinder<br />
solution to keeping us warm.<br />
At the cutting edge of this<br />
movement is Pangaia.<br />
Describing itself as a<br />
‘materials science’ company,<br />
Pangaia’s greatest innovation<br />
comes in the form of its own<br />
in-house textiles R&D lab, as<br />
well as its partnerships with<br />
ethically minded designers.<br />
What the brand produces<br />
is 100 per cent vegan clothing,<br />
right down to the stitching and<br />
the zippers. “All our fabrics<br />
are plant-based or lab-grown<br />
– no skins, hair, feathers, fur,<br />
leather, wool or silk,” states<br />
its mission policy. Instead,<br />
Pangaia utilises natural dyes<br />
and seaweed fibres. And for the<br />
filling in its puffer jackets?<br />
Wild flowers.<br />
This unique form of ‘down’<br />
is created by combining the<br />
shredded petals of flowers<br />
with a biopolymer made from<br />
vegetable waste and an<br />
environmentally friendly,<br />
low-density aerogel that took<br />
Pangaia’s scientific partners<br />
10 years to develop. <strong>The</strong><br />
result is breathable and<br />
hypoallergenic with thermal<br />
properties and a hand feel that,<br />
according to the company, is<br />
comparable to or better than<br />
high-quality down.<br />
Pangaia believes that if<br />
it can get support for these<br />
radical processes, there’s<br />
the potential to change the<br />
entire fashion industry, and<br />
the brand is drawing interest<br />
from the right people: Carmen<br />
Busquets, a co-founder<br />
investor of online fashion<br />
retailer Net-A-Porter, and actor<br />
Jaden Smith are among those<br />
with a stake in the business.<br />
For the consumer, this<br />
ethical choice comes at a price:<br />
the cheapest FLWRDWN jacket<br />
will set you back around £430.<br />
However, the cost of ignoring<br />
this kind of progressive<br />
thinking could, in the long run,<br />
be altogether greater.<br />
thepangaia.com<br />
PANGAIA LOU BOYD<br />
20 THE RED BULLETIN
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