Designer creates clothing that grows with the child

An original clothing range that fits babies as they grow has recently won the UK James Dyson Award.

Anyone with young children knows that they grow out of the clothing you buy them in a matter of weeks. All that could change though with the new Petit Pli range of clothing created by Ryan Mario Yasin. Yasin is a recent graduate from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, and invented the clothing range after buying some clothes for his nephew, that unfortunately he’d grown out of by the time Yasin got around to giving them to him.

“Children grow seven sizes in their first two years on Earth, and this equates to a lot of wasted clothing,” says Yasin. “Petit Pli’s versatile waterproof shells are pleated in such a way that they can grow bi-directionally to custom-fit a large range of sizes.”

Petit Pli’s pleated design expands as the child grows using the Negative Poisson’s ratio. This means that when the material is stretched, its auxetic structure becomes thicker perpendicular to the applied force – ensuring that the thickness and quality of the material isn’t compromised when stretched. Petit Pli clothing is designed to fit children from four to 36 months and is, according to Yasin, tough, washable, waterproof and windproof.

Yasin entered, and won, the UK James Dyson Award for technological invention. Now he’s a finalist for the International award, which will be picked by James Dyson himself. The winner gets GBP 30,000 in prize money, which will go a long way to helping Yasin’s ambitions to manufacturer a full range of clothing for retail.

Previous winners of the James Dyson Award include a foldable, recyclable bicycle helmet, and a biodegradable fishing net. How can innovation further combine fashion with sustainability to reduce the environmental and social footprint of textiles along the entire value chain?