unspun rebuilt the 200-year-old loom. Its Vega system makes garments on demand, near a store instead of an ocean away, with the cutting-room floor swept nearly clean.
Nearly every garment on earth is made the same way: weave a bolt of fabric, cut shapes out of it, and sew the pieces together. Roughly 15% of that fabric ends up as scrap before anyone wears a stitch. unspun, a San Francisco fashion-technology company founded in 2015, went after the problem at its root - the loom itself.
Its answer is Vega, described as the world's first 3D weaving system for apparel. Instead of weaving flat fabric to be cut apart, Vega takes thousands of individual yarns and weaves them straight into the three-dimensional shape of a garment. A pair of pants comes off the machine in about ten minutes, with almost nothing left over.
That single change ripples through the whole supply chain. Because a garment can be woven on demand, a brand no longer has to guess how many to make, ship them across the world, and landfill the ones that do not sell. A Vega machine can sit in a factory near the store, weaving only what has been ordered - custom-fit, if the customer wants it.
Figures reported by unspun; independent verification varies by garment and setup.
Cut-and-sew manufacturing was built for scale, not for restraint. unspun's pitch is that weaving to shape, on demand, changes the resource math. Its reported comparison of Vega against conventional production:
The core machine. Weaves thousands of yarns directly into finished garments in minutes, sold and licensed to brands and manufacturers for local, on-demand production with under 3% cutting waste.
Made-to-order denim woven to a customer's exact measurements, captured by body scanning and sold online - with near-zero inventory and waste.
Body-scanning and pattern-generation software that turns measurements into machine-ready weaving instructions, connecting fit data to the loom.
Operated Vega production for brand partners - nearshore, just-in-time garment making across North America and Europe, so brands make only what sells.
"Overproduction has long been taboo in fashion. It is now recognized by top-tier climate funds as key to urgently solve." - Walden Lam, co-founder
unspun runs on two sides at once. Global retailers and brands buy or license Vega machines for local production; consumers buy custom-fit jeans that prove the technology in the real world.
Walmart signed a multi-year agreement to use Vega for localized production in North America and Europe. Decathlon is both an investor and partner. Pilots have run with PANGAIA and H&M's Weekday, and a 3D woven collection debuted at New York Fashion Week with Eckhaus Latta.
A hybrid of industrial hardware and consumer apparel. Revenue comes from selling and licensing Vega machines and software to brands and manufacturers, running production services for partners, and selling custom jeans direct to consumers.
The direct-to-consumer line is proof of concept; the machine and service business is where the supply chain actually shifts. Selling looms to the brands it also competes with is the point, not a contradiction.
Plenty of companies bolt sustainability onto the existing supply chain. unspun went one level deeper - to the machine that makes the cloth.
Traditional manufacturing loses ~15% of fabric to the cutting-room floor. Weaving to shape removes that step entirely, keeping waste under 3%.
Most "on-demand" apparel still starts with pre-made fabric. unspun starts at yarn, so nothing is made until it is ordered.
Seamless knitting exists for soft goods; unspun brings 3D construction to woven products like denim, opening a different market.
A Vega machine sits near the point of sale, cutting shipping, lead times, and the guesswork of forecasting demand.
Beth Esponnette conceives the idea; she, Walden Lam, and Kevin Martin set out to rethink how clothes are made.
Body-scanned, made-to-order denim goes on sale direct to consumers with near-zero inventory.
Funding fuels development of the 3D weaving technology.
unspun reveals Vega, described as the world's first 3D weaving technology for apparel.
Oversubscribed round led by DCVC funds machine scaling; a Walmart agreement anchors local production and TIME names unspun a top GreenTech company.
The founding team pairs three disciplines the fashion industry rarely combines in one room: fiber science, robotics, and retail operations.
Fiber science & apparel design; conceived unspun in 2015.
Business & growth; former Lululemon APAC expansion lead.
Mechanical engineer; aerospace, medical devices, robotics.
Fashion is one of the world's most resource-intensive industries, and the parts hardest to fix - waste, overproduction, long offshore supply chains - live upstream at the factory. unspun sits at that upstream layer as a climate- and hardware-focused fashion-tech company, selling the means of production rather than another label.
That places it alongside textile-automation and made-to-measure players rather than clothing brands, and puts its real competitors in the traditional cut-and-sew supply chains it aims to replace. With Walmart, Decathlon, and multiple retailers on board, its bet is that the industry adopts new looms faster than it changes its marketing.
unspun makes Vega, a 3D weaving machine that turns yarn directly into finished garments, plus custom-fit jeans sold direct to consumers. It sells and licenses the technology to brands for on-demand, low-waste production.
Traditional apparel is cut from woven fabric and sewn together, wasting roughly 15% of material. unspun's Vega weaves the garment shape directly from yarn, skipping cutting and most sewing and cutting waste to under 3%.
unspun raised a $32M Series B in July 2024 led by DCVC, with Lowercarbon Capital, E12 Ventures, Decathlon (Pulse), and SOSV participating, following a $14M Series A.
Yes. unspun is a certified B Corp whose mission is to reduce global human carbon emissions by 1%. It reports large reductions in emissions, energy, water, and fabric waste versus conventional production.
Yes. unspun sells custom-fit jeans online, made to order from a customer's body measurements, alongside its business of supplying Vega machines to brands and retailers.