Pangaia Taps New CEO, Head of Design To Foster New Vision

MILAN — It’s the dawn of a new day at Pangaia.

The fashion brand and material science company is opening a new chapter under a new team, following the acquisition of a controlling stake by Aurora Vision Group, an arm of Abu Dhabi-based holding company Royal Group, in January 2025.

Cofounded by Miroslava Duma in 2019 as a platform to scale breakthrough material solutions and offer wardrobe essentials crafted from bio-based, regenerative, recycled and responsibly sourced fabrics, the brand quickly made its mark with colorful hoodies and tracksuits, hitting $16.6 million in profit the following year, but it failed to maintain its momentum despite its slew of celebrity fans.

The new ownership is now looking to bring heat — and sales — back evolving it into a design-led brand, while still staying true to its values of innovation and sustainability. The company quietly tapped industry veteran Daniel Gómez as chief executive officer last year to spearhead such a shift, which is expected to come to fruition this week, when Pangaia will host its first presentation as part of Milan Fashion Week.

On Tuesday, the brand will unveil its new design vision with the fall 2026 collection, which was conceived by creative director Kevin Grandal. An 1017 Alyx 9SM alum, the Spanish talent joined the company in July, charged to imprint a fresh approach to the leisurewear brand. This centers on pivoting from unisex collections to separate fits and codes for women’s and menswear, overall upping the fashion content of Pangaia’s unfussy proposition.

“The brief was clear: to elevate the brand from what it was before, which was what got me really interested in the project because I see a lot of potential and elements behind this brand that are meaningful,” Grandal told WWD. “There’s not one sku that is from the past,” he added about the 560 ones he developed in just three months with his team of six people.

Grandal dug deeper into the most common associations with the brand, a go-to choice for leisurewear and travel wear occasions. He expanded the notion of motion, imagining not only looks fit for gym and airports but to move around town and transition from Pilates classes to social events.

In his mission to offer a full and cross-functional wardrobe, Grandal toned down the technical aspects — the brand in the past pioneered new materials such as Frut, a pineapple and banana-based fiber, and Flwrdwn, a feather down-fill alternative made with wildflowers — to up the cool factor with new fits and details.

As a result, Pangaia sweatpants now come with belt loops or nod to five-pocket jeans without having the restriction of denim; hoodies are reworked via sculptural shapes, ruched constructions and scarf-nodding details or substituted by flowy, cape-like options; the oversize proportions of yore are giving room to more body-con shapes still ensuring comfort or to feminine balloon dresses and skirts, while buttoned polos and cropped hoodies are subtly enriched with a new embroidered branding. 

As he looked to evolve what he considers the brand’s assets —“materials, colors and how fun Pangaia felt at the time” — Grandal also improved fabrications. Not only did he expand the pieces crafted from recycled or organic cottons with mid-weight and heavyweight fleece, but he partnered with premium suppliers from Italy to introduce Merino wool or recycled cashmere pieces and knitted sets. 

He was also more intentional in his use of color, adding pops of primary tones to the pastel hues of yore to infuse more vibrancy and energy even in basics, and stepped into accessories like socks and caps to start expanding the product reach, pointing to a direction the company looks to further explore in the future.

Grandal is well-trained for this goal, considering his previous eight-year stint alongside Matthew M. Williams at 1017 Alyx 9SM gave him the chance not only “to see how the industry works from the get-go and at 360 degrees” for ready-to-wear and accessories, but also experiment with collaborations across product categories and creative disciplines via projects for Moncler Genius and Nike MMW, for example.

He will be tasked to do the same at Pangaia, as he will oversees all the brand’s lines. In addition to the seasonal collections, which represent the base of the label’s product pyramid, Grandal will be involved in Pangaia Collective, a collaboration-led line of limited-edition drops created in partnership with brands, organizations and cultural figures, like the most recent ones developed with the Phia personal shopping assistant app and the Museum of the Future in Dubai.

The pinnacle of the brand’s offering remains the Pangaia Lab, driven by material innovation. Gómez said the plan is to keep releasing two collections a year under this umbrella to restate the brand’s authority in R&D, making sure these innovations answer to criteria such as being ready to market and scalable. 

“Before, Pangaia Lab was focused on materials, with a couple of items. It was very technical, which is good, but it shouldn’t be the main factor,” Gómez said. “We want to bring first the design value.…Innovation is just an element to the collections.”

The approach coincides with Gómez’s mandate and overall strategy for the brand. “The first pillar is to demonstrate that a responsible brand can be desirable on a design level. These two things can’t be separated, but many brands that have focused a lot on those values of sustainability, responsibility, forget about the customer. A brand is not self-sustainable if you don’t do things that the customer wants.…So my first mandate is to develop a brand that is really desirable and design-led and with good quality. It’s the automatic formula for growth.”

That’s why the company established roots in Milan, moving its design and merchandising departments from London to tap into the fashion spirit of the Italian city, leverage its commercial network, as well as its proximity to suppliers.

The move also ties with the distribution strategy Gómez has in mind. In addition to consolidating in the U.K. and the U.S. — which are its strongest markets online — the company will focus on building its physical footprint in Italy, strengthening its presence in key locations like Rinascente and entering indie multibrand stores to add to its current 30 premium wholesale doors globally. These include the likes of Harrods in London, Galeries Lafayette in Doha and India and David Jones in Australia, among others. 

“We still want to be in selected distribution…we’re very picky because the brand is in the premium segment,” said Gómez, teasing that prices could increase under the new product direction but the overall positioning will remain the same. 

Yet his mandate is to boost the DTC channel. Pangaia will open a flagship in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island in August, intended to be a “lifestyle destination” with wellness activities and storytelling rounding out the product offering. It will mark another step in its expansion in the Middle East, where it already has a strategic presence at the Dubai airport, ensuring traffic and visibility and which will be refurnished with the new design codes. Ditto for the shop-in-shop at Selfridges in London, which also will be revamped this summer.

“The biggest challenge is the speed…the internal pressure to bring Pangaia back to its growth and relevance as soon as possible,” the executive said. “We literally created a whole architectural concept from scratch. Companies would have taken two years to develop that. We had to go fast,” added Gómez, whose previous stints comprise leadership roles at Inditex Group and Chalhoub Group, working across strategy, brand development and organizational transformation. 

“When you’re developing a career, it’s not only about career growth, it’s about purpose. And the Pangaia values are very aligned with mine,” he said about accepting this new role. “This brand’s values are relevant to the current generation.…What we’re bringing on top is doing beautiful things that are durable — because that’s also related to sustainability — but also that are good for you. It’s holistic wellness: It’s not just about going to the gym but taking care of your mind as well, and expressing this through the clothes you wear and behavior you have in the world.”