0:18
(Lian) Cool, and welcome to the Do One Thing Well podcast here with team Hiut.
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First up in conversation we have the material science company on a mission
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to save our environment which is Pangaia.
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(David) It's pretty amazing, I think they're one of the most interesting companies
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on the planet right now. And so basically we're doing this as a research project to find how to
00:42
Do One Thing Well, the component parts of Doing One Thing Well are many so we're going to dig,
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you know, a little bit deeper on those things so let's start.
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So it's a material science brand, so most clothing companies don't start out that way and so the back
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story is they have been going from 2018 and they are selling 75 million dollars, in 2020.
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(Jade) Yeah, in 2020.
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(David) So you would think 'oh my god that's an incredible growth' but
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actually they spent 10 years in a lab working out material science and so, like,
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the overnight success isn't quite overnight. Um it took them, you know they're 13 years into it so.
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(Paul) Yeah they really are so rigorous with that research,
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purely that science is really what excites them, it's really what they focus on.
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It's almost as if the fashion is a byproduct of that it's um they're so committed to it.
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(David) Yeah and just so we know, 'pan' means all inclusive and 'gaia'
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means mother earth so Pangaia, so that's a little bit of stuff to know. It's good,
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what else we need to talk about? Backstory, multiple founders...
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(Jade) Yeah so there's, Miroslava Duma, who started
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a company called fashion, sorry Future Tech Lab, um a few years before Pangaia. And she
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then collaborated with Amanda Parkes as another co-founder and they created a
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collective of artists and scientists and formed Pangaia. So there isn't one soul founder,
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um, but it has kind of grown out of this Future Tech Lab um like seed funding...
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(David) Yeah.
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(Jade) Um, so yeah it's grow from there, and it's quite nice that they don't have
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one sole founder because there's not one person to emphasise one thing on.
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(David) Yeah, and so their team is 60 plus percent women?
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(Jade) Yeah
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*Muffled voices*
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(David) Um so they have places in London, Florence and New York. Factories mostly in Portugal.
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(Jade) Yep...
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(David) Um so their three goals which are pretty interesting, yeah, to make the impact visible,
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that's good. Uh, to work towards a better future and to become earth positive.
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Oh so the turning point let's talk about a turning point,
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so they when they started they went to a uh what do you call it? a festival?
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(Jade) It's been nicknamed a 'brand orgy'
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(David) Brand orgy, ahah so okay, called Complex Con. I mean obviously
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con over here means different thing but um i think over there it means conference, so that's good.
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But the interesting thing is Complex Con has some pretty interesting people at the head of it.
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(Jade) Yeah they're chaired by uh Pharrell Williams and Virgil Abloh and...
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(David and Abi) Takashi Murakami.
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(David) And
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is that right, Colette's Sarah...
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(Jade) Yeah...
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(David) Andelman, she's involved like she's a pretty cool cat. Yeah
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she's most places, yeah pretty good.
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Okay so, but when they launched they did this like, I don't know how you
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describe it. Like sort of um, they didn't put a sweatshirt on a hanger and go aren't we cool.
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They did this incredible event. (Paul) It's no ordinary launch is it?
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It's um, everything, everything's been considered.
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Everything's been carried out impeccably and it's all down to the last very detail. It's um, yeah...
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(Abi) It's kind of like fashion meets science meets nature.
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(Jade) Yeah...
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(David) I think that's a good way of saying it Abi. Right, um, but it was designed by somebody
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who has some pedigree at doing this stuff... (Jade) Alexandre De Betak.
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(David) And so I guess, what we're trying to find out here... this isn't luck.
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This isn't just like an accident you know, they, you know they go and work with some of the best
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people at what they do. Um, so that Alex guy, he's obviously top, top notch at what he does
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and so when they launch of course they suddenly steal the show!
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(Jade) Yeah and Miroslava Duma has been called one of the
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most connected women in fashion by Vogue. So she's got, it's all the networking that she needs.
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(David) So yeah, so pedigree you know like is everywhere. Yeah so again not luck,
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they've got a collection of you know, like both scientists, you know, you know
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networkers, you know website builders, you know like uh conference, you know stand builders.
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(Paul) Yeah the art in here is what is as much as the science really, it's that
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combination of art and science is genius. It's just bringing those two worlds together because
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again we're very used to scientists perhaps not having that creative flow.
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They really have adopted that brought that in, worked with experts in their field.
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(David) Yeah so I mean after launching they had to wait,
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you know like 30 days before their turning point happened.
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So um, it was a long time, um most companies have to wait maybe a decade but they waited a month.
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So I think, you know Pharrell wearing their stuff and
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and you know putting on Instagram that was a big big moment for them wasn't it?
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So their business model is pretty interesting?
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(Jade) Yeah, they have so many different revenue sources, but in the short term
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the Pangaia drives their revenue and then in the long term it's going to be their materials
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and science that drive their revenue. So they're going to patent, well they already have patented
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some of their fabrics and then they're hoping to sell them and outsource them to other companies...
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(David) So in a way like Pangaia is their advert for their business model, which is patents of,
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you know a different way to do, you know the technologies of you know the the clothing.
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And you know, just like maybe Intel inside was selling the technology or
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Gore-tex was selling the technology. In a way maybe, this is what this is too.
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Because they want to make stuff for lots of brands, not just Pangaia.
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(Paul) Such a clever of business model again, because mentioning the Intel thing,
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it's like no matter what you bought whether like compact or something like that, quite
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named from past really. But if you had the Intel then only it was a mark of quality and um
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when Apple took on Intel, is when they kind of really took a jump as well, so it's um...
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(David) Yeah well I think they're selling the technology not the clothing,
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so you know I think that's where they're really doing something quite different.
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(Paul) I was gonna say the one thing as well is they talked about they've
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been an experimentation phase and now they're moving to the optimisation phase.
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They equated it to, imagine they are now iPhone 1 is where they see themselves
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at. So they've broken a lot of boundaries but they think this is just early days...
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(David) And I think they do endorsements, influencers in a quite unique way. I think
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most brands try and get an influencer involved, they seem to do things very differently they
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have these amazing people wear their stuff almost like organically. Pardon the pun.
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And, but they don't really push those, so they, but the ones that they do push are
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perhaps the small smaller lesser known you know people. I don't know...
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(Abi) Yeah so they're either working with like, like makers who are on the rise like
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independent makers. So they did a collaboration with um a Japanese woodworker which sold out
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in like 24 hours and then they also did one with the UN environment ambassador,
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where all the funds went to the wildlife conservation and that sold out in 24 hours too.
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But then, kind of on Instagram you see the likes of likes of Justin Bieber and Kourtney
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Kardashian. Which obviously gives a lot of hype to
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the brand, but that means that they get to stay true to their values as well.
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(David) Yeah so they're not pushing the big influencers, they're actually
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pushing perhaps um the more interesting
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influences. So that's pretty interesting because like not everybody's doing that.
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(Jade) It's a nice position to be in as well isn't it? Like,
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to have them endorse your clothes without you endorsing them.
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(David) Yeah, it's a great position to be in.
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(Paul) Just the confidence as well, to not want to push, to not fall into the trap. Of
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"okay Pharrell's given us all this attention, we'll just run with this, we'll just use this
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in all our ads. We'll kind of sell ourselves out." They really haven't done that, they've gone okay,
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that's cool, that's not what we're about entirely. It's just part of us so...
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(David) So, I think that way then there's more depth to it,
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as opposed to "oh we got the coolest cat" when, you know, our thing for this moment in time. But
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you know there just seems a bit more depth.
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(Abi) They're the same with their models and things.
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Different kinds of, they're all ages all genders.
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(Jade) Yeah really good diversity.
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(Abi) Yeah, which is quite rare.
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(David) Yeah, I think what we're going to learn in this process is to do one thing
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well you have to do many many many things bloody well. It's not just one thing.
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So visual identity, man... like they do this really well. I mean actually
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they do a lot of things well. But they do this particularly well.
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(Paul) You know I think it's, um, again we talk about confidence just now so, there's no make the
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logo bigger here. And in fact there's no logo at all on the front of the shirts. In kind of pride
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of place on every kind of product they create, is a paragraph of text and it's basically a care
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label on the outside. They're really proud of the ingredients and they're going to show that off.
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So yeah, totally against convention.
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Rather than use well, we'd always think just use one word, use two words,
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there's 10, 15 paragraph of words. Describing what the material is made out of and all these
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features it has. So again, just going against convention, being really confident in that,
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really sticking true to what they do. And yeah the logo does appear, but it's small at the back. Um
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and they're really really relentlessly consistent with it. So whatever the product is that's
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how it's done, it's um yeah, that consistency again combined with confidence, the repetition.
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(David) And is there anyone on the team who's particularly
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responsible for this? Is there some person that we've found out or not?
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(Paul) No, we've tried and tired I think.
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(Jade) Me and Lian were looking at this today, there is,
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because they are a collective there is no one person who does all their social media. They have,
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they have many great people, some who used to work for Lululemon and
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they work for some big companies but there is not one defining person.
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(David) Good, yeah well I mean, as a group effort it's pretty incredible really. I mean...
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(Paul) I think it really does work as well, because whenever I wear anything by Pangaia
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guaranteed, because of this small text on my chest people will come up to you and read it.
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Like curiosity definitely wins in that battle, rather than shouting at them, yeah people want
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to come up, they want to read what's that about. Um yeah, readers pick up an interest as well.
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(David) Cool, okay...
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(Jade) I also think it works with the having the founders, like influence of
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social media. Because one of the founders used to work for like virtual reality companies
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and so when they launched the flower down coat, they made a sort of ad like VR type
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world that you walked into and the jacket was there, and that was like their campaign for it.
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So she was a founder, not a social media person. Yeah
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it's nice how they make it all come together. Science meets art, meets high tech.
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(David) Yeah I think they're using their skills
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and they have different skill sets, particularly well so.
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(Paul) The only thing we haven't mentioned quickly though, is colour as well. Yeah,
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Colours such a huge part of their visual identity and their products and their materials.
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(David) Yeah
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and just you know, like just to go with the colour thing they have chosen seven of their colours.
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(Paul) Um yeah and they have specific meanings, it was one that was a clownfish I remember.
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(Abi) Persimmon orange.
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(David) Clownfish? Yeah of course, what else would you call it?
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But seven primary colours is their palette and obviously they go off palette as well. So
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um, but it's really well thought through when you actually,
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you know, do some, you know, if you deconstruct what they do.
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(Lian) Absolutely and I think it's to be able to balance
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and to be able to show that innovation, you know the technology.
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To really, um yeah, be able to present that really clearly is yeah so incredible.
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(David) Because you know, to make something scientific and actually,
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you know, actually you want to read it. There's two different things, you mean "oh we've got
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a patent" oh okay snooze. But they, they're making what they are doing like accessible.
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So I think they do that particularly well.
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(Paul) I was going to say, I did, uh, take the quote of how they did the colour.
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Again we talked about how science comes into that and yeah it's just magic. But
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so "Pangaia's scientists take a naturally occurring dye for example a flower with a
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red petal and sample the DNA splicing it into a microorganism. When you grow that in the lab
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you basically feed it as part of its metabolic process and then that organism then creates a dye
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and that's the dye they use to make the colours. So yeah it's science fiction,
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it's um magic and yeah I don't know how they do it, but the science is really strong.
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(David) Yeah I mean they, they're literally coming at it from a different angle aren't they. So when
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you come at something from a different angle, you are going to appear very different to the rest of
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your world, because they're not really a clothing company. They just happen to make clothes.
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(Jade) In terms of the materials as well, they want to own their own means of production. Which
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typically, fashion companies just don't do. So they've said that their factories are actually
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more like micro breweries, that's how they describe them. Because to grow micro fungi
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and these things that their using to make fabrics you don't have a traditional looking factory and
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none of, like, the manufacturing techniques are the same. So they basically have to try
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and blend this world of the processes and manufacturing we already have and
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the amazing material that they're coming up with, have to blend at some point.
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And they've said that's what has taken them so long over the ten years to get to that point.
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(David) Wow I mean I'd love to see you know one of my factories, be great to go and visit.
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Okay, so I mean, materials... they do that well. Okay.
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(Sara) Yep, so everything that they use within their fabric is renewable or alternative
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resources or even the bio and the lab grown stuff which we've spoken about. Um and everything's
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sustainable. But, um, their flower down is one of the things that they've painted that we've
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mentioned before, but it's just crazy that they've made a coat out flowers. It's just incredible...
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(David) So how does that work? I mean like, so
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what any flowers? So I can just go to my garden? Great wild flowers...
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(Sara) So, they have fields of wild flowers, but it's also a byproduct so it's not grown
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specifically for the coat itself. And then there's the biopolymer which is made from corn which is
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combined with the wildflowers, that creates the thermal properties for it to be warm and then
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they've got um bio aerogel in it as well which then creates the strength of it. But all the stuff
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that they use is all regenerative resource, so it can naturally regrow back to its full size again.
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So yeah they're not impacting the planet but using what Mother Earth has given them.
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(David) I think that's what's so interesting about them, because they have the ability to take
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you know, some, you know we all have those ideas "let's go and make stuff from
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like flowers" you go "oh yeah good luck with that Dave" but they actually
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know how to do it which is slightly annoying.
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(Lian) Even the Peppermint oil treatment, that they put on their t-shirts to reduce odour.
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(David)
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Oh really? ah!
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(Lian) Yeah, so less water less energy.
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(Paul) Yeah I was going to say how long it took them to develop the flower down
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and I know for example, they're saying it took them years and years like they had the idea
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and it was a real battle against the science to make that work. It was kind of yeah,
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their passion was really there to get it over the line. And not that I could afford one of the
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jackets, but they've got a little hole in the back, like a transparent hole we can look through
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to see the kind of flower down as well. Apparently it doesn't look like flowers or anything like that
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(David) Oh really?
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(Paul) Like potpourri was what I was expecting *Laughs*
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(Jade) It's very romantic...
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(Paul) It doesn't look like that, but yeah and again it's like you think how many
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goose down the duck down and how much of that we
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use and yeah it's not a great process really is it? Taking it off animals.
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(Jade) And the lab where they made the flower down,
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usually works with the European space agency. So it's like yeah even more crazy...
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(David) So yeah, so their collaborations are with like NASA and you know...
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(Jade) So their just really poorly connected basically.
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(David) So yes I think the materials are, you know like in a way, they spent most of the time
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on the material. Something you know in, in the lab, you know, doing the research and
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um if they are gonna do all this patent stuff and you know selling the technology,
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you know that technology is material science that they're selling. So they've done, done it well.
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Okay so we move on to the next slide, um, and that is website and social media.
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(Lian) Yeah the website is incredible. Like I said earlier the way they are able to present products
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their innovations and the science is just so well thought out. Just makes it so interesting,
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you actually, it's an educational um... yeah good and I'd say it's actually
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really educational but you're shopping. Yeah it's, um, like no other experience really.
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(David) Yeah and so the lady who like was
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responsible for the website had some experience at a museum or is it um?
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(Jade) Yeah Amanda Parkes, one of the co-founders used to work
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for the Science Museum in London. Um doing, creating their exhibitions.
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(David) So, so you can start to see all these different skill sets from these different like
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industries are coming together to form this thing. So this thing is not luck,
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you know, this is like, this is like your ultimate rock band.
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You go "oh my god you got all these amazing people like doing this stuff, it's incredible"
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Social media is something they do well.
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(Lian) Yeah they've got such a strong brand identity, um again I think that's from the use
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of colours. Um yeah, all the shoots, I think that goes, again they just merge products, colours,
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everything they're doing it just comes back into their brand identity. And it's just so strong.
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(Paul) It's that consistency again isn't it. And
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quality of execution as well, it's just everything is, yep, very well executed,
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very rendered. There's nothing sloppy. There's nothing that's, yeah, seems not part of the plan.
20:10
And something else they do really well is the their version of my Hiut's,
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where they'd have people contributing shots of themselves, selfies and things like that, which
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they use really well then. To show how people are wearing their styles
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and again putting people like Pharrell on the same level as somebody who just submitted, I don't
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think even if I submitted one they'd put me on the same page but in theory they would they would.
20:40
(Jade)
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They're also really consistent with their posting,
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like they post every day, like, one grid feed every day. And so three blocks or one,
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sorry, one image every day and they have like about five stories a day.
20:56
(David) Okay wow, so they're pretty active. Okay let's look at some data then,
21:02
so I just want to, you know, like focus on that we actually beat them on Twitter,
21:07
and the rest they absolutely, you know, yeah they left us a long time ago. So
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Instagram, 871 000 people. Pretty good, um so Instagram is their main
21:23
place, right, so yeah I guess their main focus. Yeah, TikTok is coming up.
21:27
(Paul) In terms of doing the one thing well as well though, for social media their strategies
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clearly we're doing Instagram. That's where we are. I think we're at the change in the
21:35
tide now where TikTok is catching up a little. But their focus is on Instagram.
21:39
(Lian) They're such a visual company aren't they? That it makes sense.
21:44
(David) And they have those colours, the palette. I mean it is literally born
21:49
for Instagram. It is a perfect Instagram company.
21:53
(Paul) And again because of that consistency they don't need to think about it too much
21:57
each time as well. They rely on that system they built,
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in a very scientific way. In a strategic way, but then that fuels that feed.
22:05
(Jade) And the TikTok videos, they're sort of more fan videos reposts rather than originals. So their
22:14
like engaging their community but they're not spending a whole lot of time making TikTok videos.
22:19
(David) Okay so what are the lessons we can learn then? Or have I skipped a beat?
22:27
(Paul) No no, I think we're just saying about recapping really, about that's their
22:30
kind of strap line they go for "designing a better future" and I think that's something they
22:34
generally do stick to and seem to be really aiming for. And yeah I think we've just got
22:38
ask ourselves what we think we've done well. And I think a few things have come up in terms of
22:43
collaboration and pulling experts in from different fields, they do that really well.
22:47
Things like balance as well, I think they do something, kind of between those fields
22:52
then they weigh things up quite well, in terms of not letting anyone overshadow it.
22:56
(Lian) Their confidence as well I think, by you know putting...
23:01
um putting all of that on their t-shirts. I think it's just they're confident with
23:06
what everything they do and their transparencies super super clear.
23:11
(Abi) And also their brand mission is apparent everywhere, from product to website to social
23:16
media. You stumble upon them and you'd instantly know what they look for, what they're about.
23:21
(David) I mean I actually haven't worn any Pangaia stuff, so from a design point of view, I mean like
23:29
my youngest and eldest absolutely love them. I mean it's just like they don't take them
23:33
off you know. It's pretty interesting, so obviously they've got that aspect as well.
23:37
(Jade) I think they do want to expand in the future,
23:40
into, they want to collaborate with other clothing brands. To.. so that knowing their
23:46
audience they can market to them because maybe you're not interested in track suits and hoodies,
23:50
(David) But yeah I think that's where them being a technology company will come into play,
23:55
so that technology can go in many places. I think that's,
24:00
I think that's their big play and actually the the Pangaia clothing company is really
24:05
a beautiful amazing advert for their science and their tech and their you know their technology.
24:14
(Paul) So that's the thing that's strange about this is, we haven't mentioned the clothing much
24:17
at all and it's just like, let's just take it for granted that that's amazing. And it's just like
24:21
forgetting how well they do that and how like I said, how popular the products are and how
24:26
on every level they're really engaged.
24:28
(Lian) You're buying into so much more as well. Than the product and that's
24:34
a really incredible thing.
24:35
(David) Yeah so um in short they're doing lots of things well, but actually to do one thing well
24:43
you have to do many, many, many things well. And they certainly do that. So well done to them...
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And this is our research, you know, project. This is us trying to learn how to do one thing
24:55
well because that's what we want to do so that's been good. Well done. Bumb.
24:59
(Jade) And if you want to let us know in the comments if there's anyone you think
25:04
that we should cover or think that would be good to research then let us know!
25:08
(David) Definitely!