Petit Pli

Company Name: Petit Pli

Headquarters: London

Website: http://petitpli.com

Headcount: Eight people

Profile: Petit Pli is a London-based start-up, which aims to change the way people use and dispose of children's clothing by creating clothes that expand as the child grows.

Founded by Ryan Mario Yasin in London in 2017, Petit Pli was launched to address the dull and ill-fitting children's clothes on the market.

Ryan came up with the idea after buying a piece of clothing for his nephew Viggo, but by the time he travelled to Denmark to gift it, the garment had already been outgrown. Trained as an aeronautical engineer and specialised in deployable structures, Ryan decided that he would find his own solution.

The result is Petit Pli, which patent-pending technology allows garments to grow bi-directionally to custom fit a range of sizes between nine months and four-years-old. This means that, as the child grows of typically seven sizes in their first two years, their clothes expand in size to fit them, reducing the need to buy new clothes every few months.

Petit Pli provides a solution to the world's fast-fashion industry, which has seen a boom in the number of products which are disposed of within a year of being purchased. It aims to reduce the incidence of waste produced and levels of CO2 emitted in children's wear fashion at point of production, distribution and after purchase and wants to encourage sustainable purchasing behaviours.

Through its eco-design principles, Petit Pli's ‘wearable technology' could help drive the fashion industry to be more aligned with the principles of the circular economy. The start-up uses technical materials that are ultra-lightweight, waterproof and breathable to enable children to move freely.

With a range of garments that are long-lasting and are created through an ethical supply chain, all on a commercial scale, Petit Pli is revolutionising sustainable options for children's clothing.