Unspun launches 3D weaving to reduce waste in fashion

To become a Vogue Business Member and receive the Sustainability Edit newsletter, click here. Unspun, the California startup known for making custom-fit jeans based on its 3D body scan technology, is expanding from software into hardware and is doing so with $14 million in Series A funding. The company today unveils a 3D weaving technology called Vega — like a basket-making machine but for clothes, says Unspun co-founder Beth Esponnette. It can be adopted by suppliers around the world to boost just-in-time manufacturing, with the larger goal of reducing manufacturing waste and unsold inventory. By deploying the tech to set up “micro-factories” around the world, she says the company can help brands move to a faster, more localised and more agile model of production that will ultimately reduce their footprint by reducing transportation emissions as well as garment waste. “We want to make an impact. To do that, we need to get our technology product to the brands making the most product and therefore have the most waste,” she says. Much of the industry’s waste, she notes, is a result of brands relying on trend forecasting to plan their inventory buys, as brands have to guess well in advance what items will be trending and place their orders. The machine would make just-in-time manufacturing more accessible, reducing lead times and, at least in theory, eliminating much of the guesswork that has become standard in the industry. “Vega allows brands to reduce lead times to as little as one week: a 30-fold increase in speed, a new ability to follow (vs predict) cultural trends, and a total elimination of wasted inventory,” says Esponnette. “They aren't placing orders as far ahead and can more accurately react to customer purchasing behaviours and adjust buys accordingly.” The weaving technology was part of Unspun’s vision from the start, says Esponnette. The idea was to first prove the concept of limited, make-what-you-sell production, and they started with 3D scans for custom-fit manufacturing because of its potential for customer engagement. The longer-term goal, she says, was supply chain adoption at scale in order to bring costs down and generate impact at scale. That’s the idea with Vega, which will debut in Oakland, California, where Unspun is building its first “micro-factory”. It plans to launch consumer products and brand partnerships later this year — and eventually build other micro-factories wherever there's demand, says Esponnette. Three-dimensional weaving also has the potential to eliminate the wasted fabric scraps generated during the cut-and-sew process, she explains, although that’s a much smaller problem — by volume — than overproduction, she says. Founded in 2015, Unspun has made a splash with its on-demand, custom-fit jeans: scan your body with your phone, and a few weeks later, receive jeans custom-made to fit your exact body. The idea behind this model is that it enables fashion to avoid having to try to predict — often incorrectly — what customers are going to want to buy, which is the dominant approach to apparel manufacturing and one of the main contributors to the industry’s overproduction and inventory waste problem. It’s thought to also cut down on product returns — no more purchasing three sizes of the same product just to see what fits, only to return two or even all three of them — while also doing away with the problem of sizing norms. Brands including Collina Strada, Pangaia and H&M-owned Weekday have partnered with Unspun to test out the concept. With the latest round of funding, which is led by Lowercarbon and also includes Climate Capital, SOSV, Signia Ventures and MVP Ventures — past investors included 50Y and the Mills Fabrica — Unspun is moving now to position itself as a manufacturing partner out to change how manufacturing itself is done. (Unspun’s vision is also a circular one, saying it eventually wants to take garments back for unspinning and then re-weaving the resulting yarn into new garments.) The first brand partnerships will be produced in the Oakland facility, and Unspun plans to integrate Vega into a few brand partners’ existing production facilities. “The ecosystem and know-how of these seasoned apparel manufacturers will be a critical part of Vega’s success, allowing us to perfect the 3D weaving production process and factory flow that can ultimately become the Vega microfactory standard of the future,” says Esponnette. The long-term vision is to establish 3D weaving microfactories near existing delivery infrastructure – just outside large cities and within range of next-day delivery, she explains, which would mean no international shipping or cross-country trucking would be required. “A key advantage of a simplified, automated, and localised manufacturing process like Vega is that products for NYC can be made in NYC and that tiny island in the Philippines can now be self-sufficient with its own factory.” Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: Getting closer to measuring fashion’s true carbon footprint EU proposal must hold fashion brands accountable for global textile waste, advocates say How AI-powered satellite data could boost the organic cotton industry

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