Here’s Petit Pli’s pitch that I read up on last week:
Children can grow 7 sizes in their first 2 years on Earth. This contributes towards 183 million items of outgrown & unused childrenswear being hidden in homes across the UK.
Frustrated by these facts, and using his background in aeronautical engineering, Ryan set out to innovate within the $252bn childrenswear market for a LittleHuman called Viggo, his nephew.
Ryan developed Petit Pli’s patented textile from the ground up; its versatility enables clothes to expand through 7 sizes. The technology has moved from a UK James Dyson Award winning proof of concept (2017) to a scaled technology in June 2019, with applications in sister segments, PPE, winning TIME’s Best Invention of 2020. Our Adultwear is shortlisted for the 2021 Dezeen Award for Best Wearable Design & released in 2021.
Starting as a student project, Petit Pli has grown into a D2C business with an international community of users spanning 60 countries.