By Praveen Gundala & Soumya Nallagopula, Co-Founders, PANCH Apparel
Buying clothes should not mean buying into a claim you cannot examine.
You see a garment. You feel the fabric. You read the label.
But when you want to understand what it is made of—and what supports the description—you should not have to stop at the brand’s word.
That is the question at the heart of PANCH:
Why can’t we verify what our clothes are made of?
From a question to a responsibility
For us, that question is more than a line in a brand story. It is a standard we want to build towards.
If we describe a material, we should be able to explain the basis of that description. If we refer to a test, we should make clear what was tested. If we talk about certification, we should explain what it covers.
And when we do not yet have enough information, we should say so.
The responsibility should not fall entirely on the customer to distinguish a specific fact from an attractive phrase.
Two founders, one shared standard
As co-founders, we want PANCH’s story to be about more than who started the company.
It should also be about the decisions we make.
What do we ask suppliers to document? Which claims are ready to publish? What still needs verification? What happens when the available evidence does not support the language we hoped to use?
Those decisions are where our founding question becomes useful.
A principle matters only when it changes what we do.
Building towards a clearer product record
Our ambition is to connect each garment to information that makes it easier to understand: its materials, its production context, the relevant supporting records and the limits of those records.
That does not mean presenting an unfinished system as a finished achievement.
It means building carefully, explaining what is available today and being equally clear about what remains unresolved.
The story we want to tell
We do not want our founders’ story to end with “believe in us.”
We want it to lead to a better question:
“What can we show you?”
Two founders. One question. A responsibility to keep answering it.
Read our related note: We Don’t Ask You to Trust Us: A Founder’s Note on Transparency.