2019 there we are ! It is the perfect moment to celebrate our roots as a Canadian brand. It’s also the right time to celebrate our accomplishments as a small business in an industry where it’s particularly difficult to stick by our values and to find a place amongst giants. Despite all the hardships, our tightly knit team of 8 creative minds pulled it, with the help of a truly inspiring community!
Our community of artists, craftspeople, athletes, musicians and all around passionate people contributes to make Plenty a colorful human mosaic. Our collections are rich with details that pay tribute to the people that inspire us daily. By analysing the lifestyle of the people we meet, and our own, we can focus on the needs of our community. From the East to the West, we feel the need to go back to our roots and stay active. That’s why it’s important to us to create versatile garments that are relevant from the city to the mountains. That cultural understanding lays the foundations of our creating process. That’s our INSPIRED BY ALL culture.
AN IDENTITY DEEPLY ROOTED IN SNOWBOARDING
The brand as we know it today was born in 2008. At first, PLENTY was supposed to be the name of a snowboard project/movie starring Quebec’s boys band of snowboarders (LNP, Nic Sauve, Louif Paradis, Ben Bilocq, Alex Cantin, Phil Jacques, Will Lavigne) and most of them are still repping Plenty! Unfortunately, the project didn’t work out but the name PLENTY remained. At that time, Pierre-Nicolas Lessard and Gregory Desjardins -Plenty’s founding members – were both involved in the snowboard scene on various levels prior the creation of the brand.
‘’We were young creators looking for a way to build our own universe. Designing clothes seemed to be the best option to quench our thirst for creation while offering Canadians a brand that understands the community’s needs. Made by Canadians, for Canadians! That’s when we signed a partnership contract and started to develop Plenty Humanwear full time, and things kept rolling since that time. It’s been 10 years already’’ - Pierre-Nicolas Lessard
All these years, we evolved: our passions got more diverse and our social and environment awareness got sharper. Our will to pay tribute to the people who accomplished great things before us and put forward those who will have an impact tomorrow remain at the core of our identity. That’s the reason we chose to call the brand Plenty Humanwear instead of Plenty Clothing.
OUR LOCAL RESOURCES
About 30% of our production is made (and/or customized) in Canada, or in North America: from screen-printing in the factory located 10 minutes away from our Quebec headquarters, to some styling adaptation made in Montreal. We are proud of this, but our long-term goal is to keep these number growing and increase the number of styles made in Canada for the next five years. Our artists are one of our most valuable local resource. All our printing and seasonal logos are created by local artists and we are seeking new talents season after season. Moreover, all our special collaboration collections, like Hooké X Plenty and Ouisurf X Plenty, are a product of local partnerships. We are currently working on a collaboration with an iconic Canadian brand that will come out blazing in the industry! So watch out ;) And that’s not all, we have other plans in the work, notably with the David Suzuki Foundation and The Unscented Company, a Montreal-based brand that specializes in unscented, eco-responsible products for house care and body care, and ingeniously made for a conscious lifestyle.
WHAT'S COMING NEXT
We have lofty expectations for the next ten years. Distribution-wise, we want to keep on developing the North American market, but we will also reinforce our presence as an established brand on the European and Asian markets. On a social level, we want to use the power of our brand to showcase exceptional people who had an impact on yesterday and those who will influence tomorrow via our Inspired by All videos. It’s our way to help the positive thinkers of our world. On the environmental level, our goal is to bring more of the production in Canada and develop more eco-responsible and ethically-conscious products. As a business evolving in the fashion industry, we are in debt to Mother Nature and we are totally aware of it! As for the unavoidable social medias, we want the third of our content to be created by our community through our ‘’Let your Garment Talk’’ campaign, that would be a first for a brand like us. As for the designs, we want to create more practical/fashion-oriented collections to make sure we focus our energy exclusively on quality products.
At last, we suggest you stay up to date with what’s going on with Plenty by subscribing to our newsletter and by visiting our blog regularly: Get Inspired! Have a great Canada Day, dear Canadians! Thank you to support Plenty Humanwear and to buy Canadian products. We have something to be proud of!
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