The Whole View, Season 3, Episode 67: Sustainable & Body Positive Fashion w/ Viral Shapewear CEO Ratchel Pinlac

Welcome Pinsy Founder and CEO Ratchel Pinlac to The Whole View! Stacy and Ratchel discuss sustainability in clothing manufacturing, the supply chain, and e-commerce. Ratchel walks us through how her previous experience in the industry led her to build a brand that doesn’t make us choose between sustainability, function, and fashion, and why she created shapewear that isn’t meant to be hidden and isn’t meant to hide your body.

Find Ratchel & Pinsy Shapewear:

• Website
• Instagram

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review. Letting people know on iTunes or however you listen that it’s worth their time could change someone’s life!

Key Takeaways

Introductions

• Ratchel P was a Senior level e-commerce expert at Amazon corporate for 7 years in the early days of building Amazon’s fashion business, particularly in Supply Chain Optimization for larger brands (all of which you’d know the names of).
• She left because she felt a called to craft shapewear that helps women embrace their curves, not hide them. They are size inclusive up to a 3x with various torso lengths.

Sustainable & Body Positive Fashion & Shapewear

• “Fast fashion comes at an astonishing environmental and social cost. While the impacts of the fashion industry in terms of pollution, water use, carbon emissions, human rights, and gender inequality are increasing, the need for a shift to sustainable fashion is evident.” [source]
• The fashion industry is valued at more than 2.5 trillion $USD and employing over 75 million people worldwide. The sector has seen spectacular growth over the past decades, as clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014. So while people bought 60% more garments in 2014 than in 2000, they only kept the clothes for half as long. [source]
• When in her former roles, Ratchel was searching for a category to really disrupt  change the conversation around shapeware. She had such a bad experience with it growing up, she realized there was a lot of room to make it a sustainable and environmentally friendly category, but also, make something that women actually found benefit in that didn’t just come with hiding their bodies.
• Furthermore, she saw in the fashion e-commerce industry, all of waste that occurred all throughout the supply chain.
• Pinsy is not fast fashion and made with a safer textile certification of Oeko-Tex 100 and a featured recycled outer fabric. They also minimize Earth’s impact by working to reduce their carbon footprint with shipping, having 90% of staff working remotely, using earth-friendly biodegradable mailers as well as ethical suppliers.

Next Steps

• So there are websites that can help research to avoid participating in fast fashion:
  • Honestconsumer.com
  • Earth.org – about fast fashion
  • SustainableFashionToolKit.com – about chemicals and more
• Ulimately, Ratchel encourages everyone to find fashion that celebrates their body. So you don’t have to settle deciding between function, comfort, and fashion.

Studies, References & Products

• Geneva Environment Network: The Environmental Cost of Fashion. Sources from that article:
  • McKinsey & Company, 2016
  • UNECE, 2018
  • UNEP, 2018
  • UNEP, 2019
  • Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017
  • UNCTAD, 2020
  • WRI, 2017
• National Geographic: Fast fashion goes to die in the world’s largest fog desert. The scale is breathtaking.
• Pinsy: Sustainability
• The Whole View (formally The Paleo View), Episode 355: Compression on Your Health 

Sponsors

• Beautycounter.com/StacyToth | Learn about all June deals and get a custom cart at realeverything.com/June
• TakeCareOf.com | Use code WHOLEVIEW50 for 50% off your first order
• Vegamour.com/wholeview | Use code WHOLEVIEW for 20% off your first order