Get to Know a Brand: The Elephant Pants

It’s estimated that once upon a time, 7-10 million African elephants and 200,000 Asian elephants roamed the earth. Between habitat loss and human conflict, their numbers have dropped drastically, with an estimated 100,000 elephants poached for ivory between 2010 and 2012 alone. The current rate of decline is one elephant lost every 15 minutes. Today there are roughly 470,000 African elephants and less than 40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild. Their dwindling numbers and long gestation period (22 months) put wild elephants on track to completely disappear by 2050.

In 2014, The Elephant Pants set out to do something about it.

Save the Elephants – and Feel Good While Doing It

It started with two friends hatching a plan to save the elephants, using pants as their vehicle. Starting from that tiny seed, The Elephant Pants began selling their (now fair trade certified) products with a portion of each sale going towards the conservation and protection of elephants. Starting with the eponymous pants, they soon branched out into kimonos, tops, hats and a variety of accessories. Since its inception, they’ve sold 400,000+ pairs of pants and donated more than $185,000 to a variety of local and global agencies working to stop elephant poaching and help their population recover.

In addition to donating to save the elephants, The Elephant Pants is also dedicated to maintaining a ‘Fair Trade Certified’ factory. This means adhering to strict social, environmental and economic standards like providing safe working conditions, not allowing child or forced labor in their factories, maternity leave, the elimination of harmful chemicals and much more.

Ok, But What About the Pants Tho?

The Elephant Pants offers a variety of elephant-themed clothing, from their namesake pants – in various silhouettes and materials – to bags, tops and more. Photos courtesy of https://www.theelephantpants.com

For those of you that don’t know, I live in Arizona. Which is approximately two skips and 1 jump from the surface of the sun.

It’s hot.

Melt your face, cook cookies on the dash, drive with socks on your hands, lurk in whatever tiny pools of shade you can muster – HOT.

Normally, to stay somewhat cool under these conditions one might reach for a skirt. But the desert’s got an answer for that too. In addition to ridiculous heat, it’s also windy – making occasional parking lot flashing almost guaranteed.

Enter: The Elephant Pants Classic Harem Silhouette

In addition to being sustainably sourced, they also 1) keep my booty cool 2) look cute and 3) actually make the world a better place by supporting a cause close to my heart. This is what we call a win-win.

The Elephant Pants signature item starts from $20. Personally, I think a pair of these or one of their totes would make a super cute gift for a fellow animal lover. Check them out at https://www.theelephantpants.com where you can also donate directly to their conservation partner of the moment, Space for Giants.