August 20, 2009
PACT Underwear
One priority was to create underwear that was not only sustainable but also stylish (thongs for women and snug trunks for men) in bold colors and patterns, all wrapped in eco-friendly packaging. After all, recalls chief executive Kibbey, “What we’d seen before in sustainable underwear was terrible and oatmeal colored, with awful fabrics and so much packaging that they had no green credibility. Innovation and design were missing.” Another concern was establishing a traceable supply chain that stretches from the Turkish farmers who grow the organic cotton for the garments to the Turkish factory that manufactures them with low-impact dyes and finally to the reusable (and ultimately compostible) shipping bags. Moreover, the entrepreneurs opted to donate 10 percent of their sales revenue to carefully selected nonprofits, whose field of activism would directly inspire the design. “We wanted to integrate cause and design, to make a deep connection between the two,” explains Kibbey.
Béhar didn’t tinker much with basic underwear forms. PACT’s are “not sexually enhanced,” he jokes. And while one surfer dude appears on PACT’s website, the brand’s models don’t resemble moonlighters from Abercrombie & Fitch ads. But Béhar did reduce the PACT label size to a mere 5 millimeters, a reversal of the usual “wearing a billboard on the most intimate part of your body,” he says. More attention was given to color and pattern inspired by selected nonprofits. For Oceana, the pattern linked to a global ocean conservation organization, Behar chose blue hues and stylized undersea flora based on a Japanese woodcut. For 826 National, which is connected to a program to encourage young writers, words were strung together to resemble a grove of trees.
Eventually, PACT hopes to link up with eight to ten nonprofits and possibly extend the line to socks, T-shirts and denim. With its underwear priced at between $22 and $26 a pair, PACT should provide a continuing stream of revenue to worthy endeavors.