This article is part of our Inno Awards feature. Unspun was honored under the fashion tech category. Check out the other Inno Awards honorees here.
Fast fashion has dramatically sped up trend cycles and managed to make us all look a bit more stylish. But it’s created a large amount of waste and carbon emissions in the process.
Unspun aims to trim this system down, removing the need for major retailers to keep large amounts of inventory and shorten the lead time they must use to plan for the next season’s fashion trends, all while eliminating excess fabric waste. The company uses a 3-D weaving technology that allows retailers to make on-demand orders of precise amounts that can be shipped relatively quickly and produced locally.
The Emeryville startup just signed on to a major pilot project with Walmart through which it hopes to bring its technology to commercial scale, starting with producing men’s chinos.
“Walmart is making a big bet on American-made manufacturing, and if it’s going to come back, outside of just bespoke or boutique products, it will need to look very, very different,” said Kevin Martin, co-founder and chief technology officer of Unspun. “So that’s where our technology comes in. It takes a process that historically has been super manual and helps reduce that in a way where the end garment can still be affordable by automating a lot more of the production process.”
Unspun’s Vega 3-D weaving machine works by spinning yarn directly into the final garment, as opposed to the traditional process of creating fabric that must be cut and stitched, which ends up with much of the material winding up on the factory floor.
The company was founded by Martin alongside Walden Lam and CEO Beth Esponnette. Esponnette was a veteran of the fashion industry who grew disillusioned with the hypocrisy of the industry that would publicly set lofty environmental goals, while privately discussing destroying inventory that had fallen out of trend.
A major problem the startup is trying to solve is to dramatically reduce the lead time that brands and retailers need to order clothes from manufacturers from 18 months to just a few. By making smaller custom orders from local manufacturers the lead time and product waste can be paired down significantly.
The startup does not have its
own manufacturing facilities but plans to work with clothing manufacturers to get its machines set up in existing warehouses as a productivity booster.
Martin says Unspun’s business model is to sign deals with brands to buy specified quantities of clothes over an agreed upon amount of time. The startup would then work with contract manufacturers with licensing agreements that would use the Vega machine to create and sell clothing directly to the brands under the previous commitment agreement.
About Unspun
Location: Emeryville
Industries: Fashion, 3D printing
Founders: CEO Beth Esponnette, Walden Lam and Kevin Martin
Founded: 2015
Funding: $53.8 million
Major investors: Sequoia Capital, Prelude Ventures, Lowcarbon Capital
Why they were chosen: Unspun has set its sights on tackling major issues from reducing global emissions, cutting waste and ramping up American manufacturing. The company is well positioned with its Walmart deal to make its product a commercial reality and potentially upend fashion manufacturing in the process.
