Imperial College London and Ponda launch regenerative BioPuff apparel

Imperial College London and Bristol biomaterials company Ponda have turned campus merch into a stress test for regenerative textiles. The first pieces, a Mallard gilet and a Fern cap, will be made with BioPuff, Ponda’s plant-based insulation grown from Typha, a wetland crop, and the range is set to go on sale in autumn 2026.

This is the right arena for the material to prove itself. University-branded apparel is not couture, and that is the point: it has to survive real wear, move through procurement, and justify itself on cost and performance, not just on a good sustainability story. Imperial has already said BioPuff matches goose down on thermal properties while being significantly cheaper, which is the kind of claim that matters when a garment has to make sense in bulk, not just in a lab.

Ponda was founded in 2020, with roots in Imperial and the Royal College of Art, and closed a $2.4 million seed round in 2025 to commercialise BioPuff and scale its regenerative wetland farming model. The company positions Typha as a replacement for goose down and petroleum-based insulation, while arguing that cultivating it helps regenerate peatlands, a major global carbon source. Imperial has said degraded peatlands emit about 2 gigatonnes of carbon a year worldwide, which gives this collaboration a sharper edge than the usual campus-sustainability merchandise drop.

Imperial is also folding the project into its Sustainable Imperial strategy, its institution-wide push against climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution through research, operations and community action. The university has said it wants to become a net-zero campus by 2040, and it has been explicit about using its campuses as a testbed for new ways of working and living. In fashion terms, that makes White City look less like a backdrop and more like a pilot floor.

Ponda is not starting from zero either. BioPuff has already appeared in collaborations with Stella McCartney, Berghaus, Parley for the Oceans and Sheep Inc., but a university-branded gilet is a different kind of proof. Imperial says its staff and students have created 17 sustainable fashion startups and spinouts in the last five years, and the White City campus has already hosted a sustainable fashion showcase with Ponda CEO Julian Ellis-Brown, Genaro Rivas, investor Irene Maffini and Solena Materials CEO James McDonald. Now the question is whether BioPuff can move from the language of innovation to the blunt reality of something people actually buy, wear and wash.