Thneed

**Thneed** is an expansive brand and company, originally mentioned in The Lorax. It was invented by the story's antagonist, The Once-ler, and symbolizes popular brands and businesses that exist in the real world.

This page covers Thneed as established in the reboot, The Biggering.

## Original Thneed

*To read about the original Thneed brand and recognize the differences mentioned below, click here.*

## Redesigned Thneed

In The Biggering, Thneed doesn't kick off with one same-coloured product that does all, but it's the Truffula Tree leaves themselves that are deemed the multi-use product, though in the form of an ingredient. The first Thneeds were mainly jackets and sweaters with niche, extra functions, like the ability to flip them inside out to turn them waterproof, and removable parts that could be worn as gloves, a hat, or a scarf.

Though the leaves are the main focus of Thneed, nothing of the tree is wasted and every element of it sold under the brand, like its bark and fruit, explaining Once-ler's practise of chopping down the whole tree. While this is the case, Once-ler pulls irresponsible moves like destroy already produced Thneeds to fake scarcity and increase customer's demand, thus the price.

Though the trees are theoretically accessible to everyone, Once-ler figured out the secret to making them useful, as Truffula Trees appear to have a natural defense against meddling with any one of its parts. As such, a novice who tries to do anything fancy with the leaves, fruit, or wood, will find themselves struggling to get something original and worthy of use.

Thneed's pseudo-rival, Whant, is an example of a company that tried to copy its strategies, but failed and went back to using common wool and ingredients.

The brand doesn't only focus on fashion, but also food, medicine, cleaning supplies, perfume and shampoos, and other things that benefit from the natural properties of the Truffula leaf. Thneed products come in red, pink, purple, yellow, and orange shades. It's not possible to mix these colours into new shades, though the contrast can be affected by using less leaves.

As the company started out as a clothing brand, it offers the most diversity in that category and produces fabrics of all kinds and purposes. The Once-ler has the most control over this department and the expensive Thneeds are always personal designs, while the cheaper ones tend to look more like regular clothing and also have less leaves mixed in the fabric.

Thneed has three sub-brands it sells its products under, these being "Thneed U.B.", "Thneed Floral", and "Thneed ✦ Emerald". Some products are also targeted to a specific group, which comes with the additional labels "for men", "for women", "for kids", "for pets", etc.

### **Thneed U.B.**

"Thneed U.B." is a quasi-homophone for the phrase "the need to be", but an abbreviation for "under budget". It's targeted to those who have little to spend, and expectedly, the designs are nothing out of the ordinary and no more than 2% leaf is used for this line.

While there's little effort and quality put into U.B. products, it's praised for including those who wish to partake in the newest trends, but can't afford to. It's not considered shameful to own U.B., despite its accessible pricing and commonness.

### **Thneed Fl**✿**ral**

"Thneed Floral" is a quasi-homophone for the phrase "the need for all" and targeted to the general public, as for those with a slightly above average income. The products are at least 10% leaf, but no higher than 50, and tend to have more conventional designs, but present interesting features typical for the brand.

Despite the addition of the word "Floral", most people just call this sub-brand "Thneed". Floral likes to brag about being produced under environmentally friendly conditions, in comparison to U.B. and Emerald, though this is a marketing ploy to increase interest amongst Thneed's largest target audience.

### **Thneed ✦ Emerald**

"Thneed ✦ Emerald", or "Thneed: Emerald", is targeted to the wealthy and professional fashion industry.

The clothes in this line are reminiscent of Once-ler's first Thneeds and every piece is designed by him, if not handmade and one of a kind. The products are no less than 90% leaf and valuable over their durability and craftsmanship, with a price tag that rarely drops below $1000 for a pair of socks alone, even when sold second-hand.

Though it targets a minority audience, the general public is also drawn to Emeralds and some give up everything just to obtain a product that has the label/logo, regardless if they fancy the look or have any use for it.

## Thneed copycats

Thneed's success came with many businesses that attempted to profit from the craze by selling similar products or replicas. Many of the entrepreneurs also realized The Once-ler himself to be a point of interest and mimicked his fashion style or behaviour.

Below is a complete list of imitators:

**Whant** was a short-lived company that sold parodies of Thneed products, though acted like a genuine business and rival to the company. As expected, the owner was inspired by Once-ler's work and didn't hide that fact, yet insisted not to be a copycat, even with his dressing style being the same and his name claimed to be "Thon Celer".
His products looked less colourful and mainly came in brown and grey shades, weren't very durable, and made of commonly available resources. Despite this, there was still a rather hefty price tag attached.
The inferior bootlegs commonly tricked brand-illiterate elderly people, looking to buy a Thneed for their family members, helping the business stay alive. Nevertheless, when Once-ler picked up on this, he sued Whant, leading to its downfall and Once-ler confiscating all of its factories. He was awarded billions in damages, and by televising the court process, publicly humiliated Celer in front of his worldwide fans. It was a ruthless defeat that left Celer's whole family homeless and no one feeling sorry for them.
He ended up taking his own life, and all other copycats abandoned their business after witnessing his ungracious downfall.

**Tneed**
**Tneed** was a company in China, set up by multiple, unseen owners.
The brand primarily showed its head in Chinese marketplaces and cheap, if not shady webstores. Most of Tneed's customers bought their products for the humor of it, since the clothes didn't look good and the company had a habit of repackaging any random object with the Tneed logo, convincing spectators the owners were doing it on purpose and were having a laugh at Thneed's expense.
The Once-ler found and took it down shortly after the fall of Whant, despite the Chinese court system being notoriously difficult for foreigners to navigate and having different trademark laws.

**Gustav's Amustavs**
**Amustav(s)** is a homophone for the phrase "a must-have" and was a company in Sweden, set up by a man named Gustav. He liked to feign secrecy and refused to share most of his private information, like his last name. He accumulated a small following, but his brand couldn't compete with the other copycats in the world and Amustav never left the Swedish borders.
Amustav came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.
**Cotton Tree** was a small company that, unlike most other copycats, sold home-made clothing and wanted to be a more genuine competitor. It was set up by a woman who only went by the pseudonym "Grandma Cotton".
Cotton Tree ended up getting itself in trouble when it felt to be losing its few customers to the ever-growing list of Thneed copycats, urging them to abandon their original business plan and steal Once-ler's designs. Their logo -a tree that resembles the Truffula Tree- also got them in legal trouble, as it insinuated their clothes were made of Truffula leaves, which they weren't.
The Once-ler found and took it down shortly after the fall of Whant.

**Tree Thread**
**Tree Thread**, or **Threead**, was a small company that came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner. It also tried to copy Cotton Tree's image by claiming it was home-made and having an elderly woman for a mascot.

**Gettit!**
**Gettit!** was a small company and one of the first copycats to emerge. It came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.

**Nede**
**Nede** was a small company that came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.

**Desiree**
**Desiree** was a small company in France that came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.

**Moore**
**Moore** was a small company that came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.

**Give or Take**
**Give or Take** was a small company that came to an immediate end after the fall of Whant, by choice of the owner.