When are the Lasclay coats coming?
Since our very beginnings, dozens of times a week, this question keeps coming back.
Every time, we gave the same answers:
"Maybe someday, but not right away!"
"We're focusing on small accessories to introduce the powers of milkweed to as many people as possible. The merino wool sock strategy, basically!"
Well, our answer has now changed. More than a year ago, we started developing a first milkweed coat and a sleeveless vest, products that are truly one of a kind.
When we say first, we mean for us... Because there have been milkweed coats on the market before. Did they give milkweed a good reputation?
Yes... and no.
Very warm and light, like most products insulated with this fibre, they were appreciated by the people who wore them, but they never managed to break into the market. Whether it was the $1,000 Quartz parkas or the $500-plus Atypic puffer jackets, few units were sold, both products were discontinued, and in the end some great opportunities to put milkweed on the map were lost. A series of decisions, logical or not, stuck a label on this material. People ended up thinking, "Well, milkweed, I'll never know if it's warm, it's too expensive, it's a luxury product."
We have always said it: a plant that grows in sidewalk cracks in the middle of downtown, and that is so abundant, should not be marketed as an overpriced product whose scarcity is kept up artificially. We need to develop it, industrialize it responsibly and democratize it. It is a collective resource that everyone should have access to.
But how do we get there, given the dead end at the heart of the great social project that milkweed represents in Québec?
Because yes, there is a kind of dead end, a paradox in the development of the milkweed industry, and in all honesty, it may be what made the milkweed coats of the past so expensive.
So those who tried to produce a milkweed coat in the past were faced with two options, each as unpleasant as the other:
1. Ship milkweed to the other side of the world so it can come back here (the main market) as finished products: complete commercial and environmental nonsense.
Our predecessors chose the second option, with the results mentioned above...
But are those really the only choices? Or, with a little creativity, could we find a middle ground?
After all, the greatest benefit of Québec's milkweed industry is without question keeping the fields in production, fields that support so much biodiversity, including threatened monarch butterflies. We firmly believe this, and honestly think this mission justifies a few compromises.
A revolutionary idea was born: a coat with removable insulating pads made in Québec, inserted into a shell pre-assembled elsewhere in the world, where the expertise and technology are. These removable milkweed pads, a bit like our fisherman beanie, adapt to the changing temperatures of the four seasons: you put the milkweed in for the freezing temperatures of winter, and take some or all of it out when spring arrives and the weather is milder!
The concept also makes the coat more durable (you can replace only the insulation if it wears out after a few years) and breaks the commercial deadlock that sank past milkweed coat projects (see below).
Our removable insulation concept gets milkweed out of this dead end: we keep the production of milkweed insulation, for which we have developed unique expertise, here at home, and we sustain the milkweed crops that are so beneficial for the environment. We amplify this positive impact by making elsewhere the parts that are impossible to make here, where we are not competitive.
For more details on this project, here is a short video that explains it further. I produced it as part of the Première Ovation Design grant, which I received personally to develop this project.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12DPYkN9IeGNY0EiwPxiDgLS5O2ryRX1j/view?usp=sharing
Why is this pre-sale crucial for the future of Lasclay and of milkweed?
Developing bigger, more complex products like coats, sleeping bags or bedding, which use more milkweed than our small accessories, is crucial to keeping milkweed in cultivation. We are at a critical point.
Lasclay's milkweed coat is therefore a decisive project : if it succeeds, it will help make milkweed farming and our company profitable, and it will open the way to a host of other milkweed products, ones that are highly interesting and in demand. With your contribution and your trust, we can get this wheel turning and clear the path toward a bright future for milkweed in Québec, making it a true flagship industry, which has been our ambition since day one.
This beautiful plant deserves it. The monarch butterflies deserve it. The courageous milkweed growers deserve it. And you, our loyal community who have supported us from the start, you finally deserve the products you have been asking us for, for so long.
