Blue Cast: Unspun’s Beth Esponnette on the Impact of ‘Intentional Manufacturing’
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of Episode 508.
The modern fashion industry operates under a push model, where companies try to predict what will resonate with consumers, produce goods and then send them to stores in the hopes that they sell. As Unspun founder Beth Esponnette explained on the latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast, this has led to significant waste, with 30 percent of goods manufactured never finding a place in customers’ closets. Part of the problem also stems from the fact that merchandise is not tailored to the individual shoppers’ tastes and bodies, which contributes to their choice to skip buying.
“We have products that we make before we know that they have a home,” Beth told Lenzing’s head of global business development – denim Tuncay Kilickan. “We make them, and then we pray when we put them into a store that someone’s going to love it.”
Unspun set out to change this through what Beth called “intentional manufacturing.” The idea behind this is producing what is needed. This could mean putting the person at the start of the process with made-to-order clothes, creating what will fit them aesthetically and physically. This means they will also value their clothing more.
Some of Unspun’s partners—like Walmart—aren’t yet ready for fully on-demand manufacturing since their customers aren’t as willing to wait for production to happen after their purchase. For these retailers, Unspun is still providing benefits like shortened lead times, which in turn helps to better gauge demand for less waste.
“We really want to get our partners, big and small—especially the big ones—to get used to this process of making things in kind of an additive 3D way. And then once they’ve come to terms with that, once the customers get used to that, then start to introduce this on-demand model,” said Beth.
Underpinning Unspun’s efficient production is its 3D weaving solution Vega, which Beth explained is similar to basket weaving while also taking inspiration from 3D knitting machines. Vega uses flat looms that move to different axes to weave in multiple directions.
While onshoring somewhere like the United States is often cost-prohibitive, the addition of automation could make the financial profile more palatable. The San Francisco-based company has three machines in its U.S. microfactory, two of which weave domestically grown and spun cotton, localizing the supply chain. Although the U.S. is a big cotton producer, much of it gets shipped overseas since there is minimal manufacturing infrastructure stateside.
Unspun will soon be establishing its first partnership and microfactory facility in Europe, responding to strong demand in the continent.
Despite manufacturing denim, Beth noted that Unspun has not tackled jeans yet. Whoever the first partner is will need to be “open minded” since this will be a departure from the traditional jean. “To most denim jeans designers, it’s about the seams and it’s about those highs and lows when you wash the material that you get from the construction of the garment,” she said. “And if we’re changing the construction completely, it’s not going to have that same effect, but it does bring some really interesting new opportunities for what a jean could be.”
Listen to the full episode here.