Once a working cotton spinning mill, the facility is now a beacon of innovation in an industry desperately searching for sustainable solutions.
Headquartered in Hong Kong and London, Mills Fabrica partners with startups interested in bringing greener choices and outcomes to the fashion and apparel industry. The company helps startups improve their business models and lay the foundations for a more sustainable future.
Mills Fabrica general manager Cintia Nunez said the venture capital fund and incubator has a multi-layered strategy for working with startups.
“We’re not just an incubator, we’re actually a one-stop shop. We have everything we need to support this ecosystem to be a better, more sustainable place,” she said.
The Nan Fong Group-owned venture capital firm and incubator serves as the innovation arm of The Mills, a tech-style hub housed in an old textile factory. The firm invests in startups and supports them through incubation programs. Nunes said the firm also works to develop and educate the industry at large through thought leadership and advocacy.
One of the company’s main goals in the fashion and denim sector is to educate brands, manufacturers and consumers, so it has a retail store called Fabrica X where it showcases innovations and prototypes coming out of its partner companies.
At FabricaX, the spotlight is on denim for the first half of 2024. Mills Fabrica’s campaign, “Denim Futures,” will debut in 2023 and will be on display through July, according to Nunez.
The storefront features information about the many companies working to improve the denim industry supply chain, from startups like Unspun and Huue to major players like Levi’s and Jeanologia. Consumers can purchase Fabrica X items that are created with sustainably in mind, as well as experience innovation in action.
Nunes said the Denim Futures culmination was a forum for public opinion and an opportunity to share a wealth of knowledge with other stakeholders, including consumers, manufacturers and brands.
“We strongly believe that sustainable denim requires participation from the entire ecosystem,” Nunes told Rivet. “With our Denim Futures campaign, we aim to bring together different players to foster innovation and collaboration by sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas on sustainable solutions across the entire denim supply chain.”
Nunes said that while the exhibits at Fabrica X will only last for a short period of six to nine months, many will be exhibited again at other Nan Fong Group facilities at a later date. Mills Fabrica is now exhibiting the biomaterials that were once on display at Fabrica X in various locations across Hong Kong. Nunes said Denim Future will remain on display after its exhibit period at Fabrica X ends.
Unspun, which is committed to decarbonizing the supply chain through the production of made-to-order garments, is currently part of the Denim Futures campaign. The company has worked with Mills Fabrica since 2018 and has had the opportunity to participate in several education-based activities, said Walden Lam, co-founder and CEO of Unspun.
Nunes said Unspun is one example of a company that has built a successful partnership, in part with Mills Fabrica’s help: It worked with Belgian startup Rezotex to use the company’s dissolvable sewing thread to sew customized jeans for each customer, using Unspun’s custom scan technology.
“This collaboration between the two startups brings us one step closer to combining two cutting-edge technologies and introducing a jeans purchasing option, closing the loop,” Nunes said, adding that Mills Fabrica aims to forge further connections with other startups and major manufacturers and brands for its incubators in the denim sector.
Lam said Mills Fabrica has also fostered relationships with large companies, but could not disclose details of the cooperation. Over the years, the company has received investments from Mills Fabrica, cooperated with them in some activities and developed expansion strategies.
“From a global perspective, it’s been an incredibly rewarding journey,” Lam said. “We started building relationships in Hong Kong and through them we were able to expand into Europe, with our first employees in Europe now working in their offices. [London] space [this year].”
Anspan is not alone in its ambitions to expand further: Mills Fabrica also has plans to expand into other parts of Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China, where the Nan Hun Group already has assets, Nunes said.
She said expanding Mills Fabrica’s operations could help advance the company’s key goals.
“We want to be a catalyst for fashion. [and] “We want to revitalize the denim industry and provide the world with more sustainable products,” Nunes said.
