Pangaia is closing the loop with Infinited Fiber Company.
The companies revealed Tuesday a line of limited-edition Pangaia T-shirts made from 100 percent Infinna, a regenerated fiber derived entirely from post-consumer textile waste. The collection is the third to fall under the auspices of Pangaia Lab, a testing ground for breakthrough technologies that can help the fashion industry shrink its environmental footprint. Previous innovations include bacteria-grown dyes and eyewear lenses made partially from carbon dioxide.
“As a research team we are looking for innovative materials science solutions based on our research pillars; one of which is exploring solutions for waste reduction and circularity whilst the other is reducing the industry’s reliance on virgin cotton,” Craig Smith, research and development director at Pangaia, told Sourcing Journal. “Infinited Fiber solves for both of these. Once we were connected with the Infinited Fiber team, we realized the brands were perfectly aligned to bring a product and partnership to life.”
The shirts, which come in short-sleeve ($75) and long-sleeve versions ($85), both in black, mark debuts for both companies: They’re Pangaia’s first products to be made from 100 percent recycled inputs and the first to be composed completely of Infinna. The items can prove their bonafides through third-party validation, too. Just last week, Infinna received the SCS Global Services Recycled Content Standard’s seal of approval for containing a minimum of 99 percent post-consumer recycled content.
“We use cotton-rich post-consumer textile waste as the sole raw material in the production of our regenerated Infinna textile fiber at our pilot facilities, and having validated external proof of this in the form of the SCS Global Recycled Content Certification is a big milestone for us,” said Petri Alav, CEO and co-founder of Infinited Fiber Company. “We’re thrilled to have received this recognition as it is something we can share with partners and collaborators as we work towards conserving natural resources, stopping waste from being wasted, and making textile circularity an everyday reality.”
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The two companies have also signed a multiyear development deal to make Infinna available through Pangaia’s B2B platform, Pangaia Science, which extends textile technologies such as wildflower insulation and nettle-woven denim to other brands, retailers and suppliers. Infinited Fiber Company, which aims to have its first commercial-scale factory up and running in 2024, has previously linked up with Ganni, Patagonia and Wrangler and counts Adidas, Bestseller, H&M Group and Zalando among its investors. More is expected to come down from the Pangaia-Infinna pipeline, as well.
“We have worked together on this first launch by Pangaia and we are very excited to be working together with them to make textile circularity an everyday reality through future products,” Kirsi Terho, key account director at Infinited Fiber Company, told Sourcing Journal. “We have a wonderful partner for our regenerated Infinna textile fiber, and we can’t wait to see what Pangaia decides to make with Infinna in its future collections.”