5 Exciting Independent Labels From Around The World

It’s clear that we need to design, create and buy better in fashion — a push for best practices in both the environmental and social sides of fashion has major global resonance today. Jing Zhang highlights five exciting independent labels from around the world that are effecting change.

- Jing Zhang

PANGAIA

Quickly rising to eco-fashion superstardom is Pangaia, a materials science-led fashion label that takes its name from Pan, meaning all-inclusive, and Gaia, the theory of Earth as a self-activating organism. The collective at the helm of the brand specializes in technology, design, marketing, supply chain, and science – with departments functioning in cahoots with each other rather than in a typical fashion corporate structure.

Offering cool, essential basics, such as sweatshirts, T-shirts, shorts, winter puffer jackets in neutrals, and of-the-moment hues, it’s already garnered a host of celebrity and eco-conscious fashion fans – with key pieces quickly selling out online. The aesthetic is joyful and the business model is one of radical transparency, in materials, development, supply chains, and tech.

“I call our approach ‘high-tech naturalism’,” says Dr. Amanda Parkes, Pangaia’s chief innovation officer. “The transparency goes hand in hand with innovation, as there’s no point in having great materials and a terrible factory that makes the clothes. We work with a holistic approach; when we measure impact, we have to measure every single part of it.”