prAna

The Prana clothing company started out 17 years ago making clothes that worked well for climbing and yoga. It turned out that the yoga clothing worked well for lots of other passions too, so they added new products with "purpose" in mind and scoured the world for design inspiration. They cut and sewed yoga gear in their garage and shipped it to customers in surplus fruit boxes gathered from the local grocery store. For hangtags, prAna ground up old newspapers, added essential oils and cut out the handmade paper with a pizza cutter. Their first employee slept on a hinged bed that turned into a shipping table by day. What's changed since then? Not much - and a lot. prAna has grown a bunch, but most of the original employees are still there. They participate in business with like-minded folks who want to promote conservation and create positive change, which reflects the same intention as the old days, just taken up a few notches. Organic cotton, fair trade and wind power initiatives are on the short list of what they support.