ICYMI, wagamama recently redesigned its uniforms with the help of materials science pioneers PANGAIA. With a 50 per cent plant-based menu and other eco-friendly practices, like sustainable packaging, this was just the latest step in the UK-based restaurant’s mission to tread more lightly on planet Earth. Now, though, it has teamed up with PANGAIA once again, to take the collaboration one step further.

This time, the scheme isn’t about engineering new, cutting-edge designs, but instead focuses on how old clothes can be worked into a greener, circular economy. In other words, wagamama has asked its team members to raid their closets for their old uniforms, and return them to be repurposed into a limited-edition line of hoodies, co-designed with PANGAIA.

All wagamama team members that return their old t-shirts have a chance to win a wagamama x PANGAIA hoodie, while the new hoodies created from the old t-shirts will be on sale to both team and customers in 2024.

The repurposing scheme is closely aligned with PANGAIA’s own mission statement. Since 2018, the company has been pushing the frontiers of eco-friendly design, manufacturing fabrics from plant waste and finding lab-grown alternatives to the harmful harvests used to create substances like palm oil. 

The new wagamama uniforms similarly harnessed PANGAIA’s earth positive science through the use of pesticide-free organic cotton, treated with PPRMINT™, a plant-based peppermint oil that neutralises odour-causing bacteria and reduces the amount of washing that’s required to keep clothes fresh.

To celebrate the latest collaboration, wagamama hosted a number of upcycling workshops, highlighting the environmental and creative possibilities of a circular economy. Held in partnership with the design project Greater Goods, which specialises in creative and eco-friendly projects that utilise reclaimed, damaged, or unwanted products. The workshops have further used up wagamama’s old uniforms, to continue to bring the restaurant’s PANGAIA collab full circle.