Q&A with Leo and Casey Gripari (That Gorilla Brand)
Meet the couple whose gorilla inspired brand, films and challenges has brought clean water to 15'000 people and brought conservation to the forefront
In 2018, husband-wife duo Leo and Casey Gripari, embarked on the unique mission of creating sustainable streetwear for the benefit of…gorillas? Wittily named That Gorilla Brand, the pair’s apparel aims to raise funds for The Gorilla Organization, which supports gorillas in their natural habitat by championing the rangers and local people that care for them, specifically within communities surrounding the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. Since then, the brand has evolved into a unique cause that is committed to making a positive impact on people and the planet. Now, That Gorilla Brand hosts fundraising adventures, which help to nurture the Bwindi community through raising money for water sanitation, solar energy, and hygiene within schools. Previous adventures have seen the team tackle the Grand Canyon, Mardi Himal, and Mount Olympus. As a result, an additional 15,000 people across different communities now have safe access to clean water, with the brand donating €220,000 towards community projects. Passionate about sharing their mission, That Gorilla Brand uses film to convey the importance of their pursuit, in hopes to get others involved. Their recent film “The Hearts of Bwindi” has been hugely successful in doing so, winning Best Short Documentary at the Seattle Black Film Festival 2024. The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is inhabited by a population of just 459 individual mountain gorillas, which makes up almost half of all the mountain gorillas in the world. Equally saddening, in 2020 it was reported that fast fashion produces over 92 million tonnes of waste a year – this is only set to worsen. As the fashion industry continues to cloud over, That Gorilla Brand remains a ray of sunshine offering stylish, sustainable, ethical apparel that aids necessary and life-changing initiatives. Sludge Magazine had the pleasure of speaking with the brand’s founder, Leo Gripari, who explains why That Gorilla Brand is bigger than sustainable fashion.
Can you pinpoint the moment that you decided to pursue That Gorilla Brand?
In August of 2018, I was in Singapore on a family holiday. I was actually jetlagged. At about three in the morning, I came up with the wonderful world of That Gorilla Brand from my bed whilst my wife was asleep next to me. That was the moment the brand was born. I thought about setting up a brand based around supporting the conservation of gorillas. Initially, it was just based around the clothing. Something that I'd been thinking about previously was all of the brands associated with animals, that champion animals in their logos. I wondered how many of those brands actually supported the conservation of the animals that they wear, or that they champion. From August of 2018, when the idea first came about, to November of 2019 when we launched, we essentially just researched and made sure that we were in the correct position to launch. We also wanted to focus on your staple pieces – hoodies, joggers, swimwear, things that me and my family wear daily.
On Instagram, you talk about gorillas inspiring you. What characteristics of theirs inspire you, and the brand itself?
One of the things that I did a lot of research on from the offset was gorillas and their personalities. There has been a lot of research on their characteristics, and there were three things that stood out to me. Strength, love, and loyalty. Gorillas are very often portrayed as these very dangerous, aggressive animals. They're not at all, they’re actually very calm and very gentle. They have a lot of love. When you see a silverback male gorilla holding its child, and you see the love between them, these characteristics are very apparent. They’re also very family focused. There are a lot of misconceptions around gorillas. They only get aggressive when they're endangered. I’ve been focused on their characteristics from the beginning. I remember thinking, you know what? Strength, love, loyalty – we can really relate to that. Myself and my wife have got three children and those were the things that stood out to us, and have remained core values of the brand.
People may assume that producing clothing whilst advocating for sustainability and conservation is contradictory. How did you strike a balance between creating sought after apparel, whilst also ensuring that its impact is ethical?
It was important for us to find a factory within Europe. Through research, we found a great factory in Portugal called RTG. I immediately went out to the factory. They were very transparent. They opened their doors to me. They showed me around the factory. They showed me the working conditions. They showed me various different things on their water policies, on their waste policies, and I felt I could really trust them and their practice. We've been with them since the beginning, so we're coming up to five years. We've got another factory which is close by, called Tryport, where we make our swimwear from ocean waste plastic. We do as much as we can. We donate an amount per item sold to The Gorilla Organization, we also have our other initiatives that fundraise for Bwindi impact projects. As the brand has developed in terms of our production, we're aligning with a factory that has responsible practices. In terms of our impact we're actually implementing water projects for Bwindi communities. So to sum it up, on the product side we're trying to do no harm. As a brand, we try to do over and above to help make a difference.
Can you share any unique practices that you’ve implemented to enhance sustainability?
Obviously the factories that we’ve partnered with, who have unique processes such as with our swimwear. Beyond sustainability, we're trying to be incredibly impactful on a very small area of this world, the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, and the surrounding communities. I’d say we are reactive. For example, we found out that one of the schools from our water project had no cubicles, and no toilet doors for girls. This created a very unstable environment for the girls, particularly with their monthly cycles. As soon as we learned this, we started to look at how we could help. So far, we’ve rolled out new toilet cubicles, we've rolled out new doors. We should finish that project within the year. Another example is when we visited, and realised that there were power cuts, and there’s rarely lighting in the wet season. Again, being reactive, we’ve just come back from the Grand Canyon fundraising for solar energy to combat this. Because we’re a family run company, we’re able to make immediate decisions regarding how we are going to help.
I understand that you launched in the UK (online) during the COVID Pandemic – how did you navigate the Pandemic from a business perspective whilst also focusing on your ethos?
Once we launched, COVID came around swiftly. One thing that was funny, COVID allowed us to test our products. Everyone was in joggers and hoodies and t-shirts from That Gorilla Brand – wearing and washing them consistently – and affirming the fact that the clothes are good quality, the shapes and colours were holding. We had a kind of product testing environment, with our big thing being loungewear during a pandemic. There were also definitely hurdles. At the beginning of 2020 we went into some trade shows, and we started getting quite far down the line in the process of taking orders. Then COVID hit, those orders got cancelled. Subsequently, a lot of stores were holding on to dead stock that they had and weren't placing new orders. We adapted in the way that we produced an amount of product, and we were able to work on a consignment basis with a number of smaller boutiques and some good hotels. We just had to battle through it and carry on going. Brexit became an issue for us, the online orders went down quite significantly for a few months, with everybody understanding what the costs associated with Brexit would be. I think because we make staple pieces, there was still demand for them during COVID, and we were okay.
Your “Adventures for a Cause” fund initiatives to support the Bwindi community, by providing safe access to clean water, hygiene and sanitation within schools, and solar energy. In turn, this benefits gorilla habitats. Can you explain how the adventures came about, and how they benefit gorilla habitats?
My first trip to Uganda was in January of 2020. I went and saw the gorillas. I went and saw all of the community led conservation projects that we support through our donations to The Gorilla Organization. I was spending time with some of the locals there. The recurring topic that kept on coming up was the lack of access to safe, clean water. To help combat this, I set out different challenges across the Grand Canyon, which was when I approached The Gorilla Organization and asked if they’d be interested in helping us, to which they said absolutely. We’ve now completed all of the water projects and I’ve completed all of the challenges. I'm not running the length of Africa. I'm not running a 400 kilometre race. I'm doing these accessible challenges for people that want to push themselves but have never run marathons. The money raised for the water projects stop the local communities entering the gorilla's habitat for unwanted reasons. Very often the communities will walk into the gorillas habitat looking for water and resources. So essentially we're trying to limit that. Gorillas have 98.9% human DNA. Meaning they can catch COVID, Ebola, viral infections. The more we invest in communities, the less they will need to interfere with the gorillas and the gorilla habitat.
Where have you been on previous “Adventures for a Cause” – and where do you plan on going?
We did six initially, so it was Mount Olympus, Iceland, Grand Canyon, Jordan Desert, Nepal, then Uganda. We’ve just returned from the Grand Canyon where we did a very, very remote wilderness challenge fundraising for solar energy projects. We had a target to raise around 15 to 20 grand. We've raised over 26 grand so far. We’re working on next year’s challenge, which will be in France, around Lake Annecy. I'm doing an ultra 75 kilometre run, and we're encouraging anyone to come and take part with us. You can run, walk, jog as much or as little as you want. Hopefully that's going to fund four more water projects and a rebuild of a school, again within the communities.
On top of community building at a local level, your social media channels allow you to create a sense of community on a wider scale. Why is community building important in terms of both fashion and conservation?
We are trying to inspire people to come and join us. Whether you're inspired by our films, clothes, social media – we want people to want to take action, even if it’s nothing to do with That Gorilla Brand. We love it when people join us on our adventures, donate to the projects, or buy our clothes, which in turn will also generate a donation to The Gorilla Organization. Essentially, it's all about growing that community of like minded people who are interested in a brand that does good and at its core is all about impact and positive energy.
So far, what has been the most gratifying moment as the founders of That Gorilla Brand?
Hands down, visiting the water projects with Casey, my wife, and ten other people that are very close to us in different manners. We went out to Uganda back in January this year. Actually being in the communities and seeing the proximity of access to clean, safe water to their homes. That has been the proudest moment and I think it's brought together because of all of the support that we've had from our fundraising and all of the initiatives that we've done. It’s not just something that we've just decided to do. It's actually accumulated, the amount of people that have just got behind us and really supported us in everything that we're doing. Another thing that we’re really grateful for is our stockists all around the world, getting stocked in new places is always an exciting time. We're actually launching in Los Angeles with a legendary store called American Rag. Just seeing people engage with us, through sales, the films, the challenges, it’s all super exciting stuff.
What are your hopes for the future of That Gorilla Brand?
To be as impactful as possible and keep doubling down. We've set a really great base to build on. Having 15,000 people with water is a great base for a small brand that started a few years ago. We want to build on the valuable relationships that we have with people, like our factories and our stockists. Obviously, we’d like to increase sales to further aid The Gorilla Organization. We just want to keep building. We can make a great amount of impact on this one place on Earth. We're not looking elsewhere. We're looking to Bwindi, close to the gorillas, the communities, their water, education, sanitation, solar energy. That’s what we’re committed to.
Article by Hannah Kitty Brownbill
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