Clothes that grow with your child
SUMMARY
Ryan Mario Yasin: Founder and CEO of Petit Pli
Ryan, originally an aeronautical engineer studied at the RCA and applied his combined design and engineering skills to address the challenge of waste in the fashion industry, especially children’s clothes that have such a short life. What if you could have clothes that grow? Ryan created Petit Pli which applies ground-breaking material technologies that solve problems for individuals, businesses and the planet across the textiles value chain. It all started with Ryan’s nephew. Shortly after Vigo was born Ryan gifted him clothes, but by the time they arrived they were already too small. This served as a signal: childrenswear today fails to recognise the dynamic and rapidly changing bodies of Earth’s “Little-Humans”. Inspired by his background in deployable satellite technology, Ryan created a garment that would grow with his nephew, reducing water and carbon footprints, and the need to keep buying new clothes. Soon after, Petit Pli was born and Clothes That Grow went on to win multiple awards, starting a sustainable childrenswear revolution.
Ryan Mario Yasin
Founder and CEO of Petit Pli
The negative impact of fashion on the environment isn’t limited to childrenswear so we have embarked on transforming adult clothing too - imagine if your wardrobe could cost less and be instrumental in halting environmental damage. As Ryan explains, “At Petit Pli we believe that designs which fulfil real human needs will never be thrown away, so we’re asking what happens if clothing is truly without gender and is so versatile it adapts to a wide range of body shapes and sizes, styles, activities and purpose. If extending clothing life by nine months equals a carbon and water reduction of 20-30% each, imagine what ninety years and beyond could do…”
Ryan is also working on self-deploying satellite panels using the same principles and applying his aeronautical engineering skills with his design skills from the Royal College of Art.
Applying Empathetic Engineering Principles
This project that was inspired by personal and familial experience, the birth of a nephew and the close observation of the issues of buying clothing for a little human that will outgrow the clothes so rapidly. But then it takes deep research into the fashion and textile industry system, from manufacture of yarn to production, distribution retail to recycling to understand where and how to intervene. The inspiration of applying the knowledge of extensible surfaces from the aerospace industry, where rigid or semi-rigid structures can change form, to creating 3D flexible surfaces that can morph around a human being is immensely creative; taking a technology solution from one sector and applying it in another. However, the real innovation comes in identifying the specific opportunity and creating a solution that will appeal to parents, grandparents, clothing buyers in retail, manufacturers of textiles and garments – well that takes a lot of empathy with their needs, interests and desires. The solution is one of those, “why didn’t someone think of this before?” but it’s only obvious in retrospect. And Ryan and his team received around £400,000 in grant awards and have subsequently generated significant further investment to propel Petit Pli to its position as a truly innovative clothing company catering not only for “Little Humans”.
