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Can 3D Weaving Make Domestic Production Viable? · The Interline Podcast

• speaker-0: Hey, welcome back to the Interline Podcast. Now, we've talked about domestic manufacturing on the show before. Back in 2025, I think it was, I interviewed Nick Reed, who is the founder of a Sensatable menswear brand here in the UK called Neem London. We covered a lot of ground in that episode, but the part that stuck with me was him saying that he hadn't been able to do a full Made in the UK collection, despite wanting to. Because the infrastructure he needed as a brand owner wasn't there. And he didn't think it would be there unless something dramatic happened. And the kind of dramatic that we were talking about was realistically a leap forward, or diagonally, I guess, in manufacturing technology, or government support in the form of sponsorship and subsidies that would allow in country producers to actually pivot to a different model. Now, we've also talked about leaps in upstream technology here pretty recently when Stephen Bates, the CEO at Rheon Labs, joined me in June. And we definitely talked, he and I, about how hard those leaps are to make and why so many innovators flounder when it comes to translating a novel concept into a viable commercial proposition. Here at the Interlime, we, along with plenty of other outlets, have also talked pretty extensively about the conditions that are creating a really strong firm mandate for the kind of state-level investment in domestic infrastructure that's going to be required in order for brands to feel confident placing orders and for manufacturers to have the stability to support those brands. You know those conditions. It's tariffs, it's wars, it's the general shakiness of the global order. Today's guest is someone who's thought about all of this extensively, and someone who's seen it from both sides of the curtain. Arne Ahrens has been a top flight brand executive. He was global brand president at the North Face from 2017 to 2021. He was a CEO at Board Riders, which owns Quicksilver, Bill of Bong, DC Shoes, and so on. And he was a board member at Everlane. And earlier this year, Arne moved into technology. He joined 3D weathing company Unspun as its CEO. If you listen to the show for long enough, you'll know that CEOs are some of my favorite guests because they either have a really great vantage point and understanding of everything. Under their remit and really broad perspective, or they don't, and it becomes obvious quickly where there's a hole. Arne is firmly one of the former. He gets every side of this discussion in a way that only somebody who's led a brand and now led a technology company deep in the weeds of production can. And he was game for me querying him about basically all of them. So let's hear what he had to say. Okay, Arne Ahrens, CEO of Unspun. Welcome to the Interline Podcast. speaker-1: Thanks so much for having me, Ben. Pleasure to be here. speaker-0: Now, we always start these shows by trying to pin down what the guest's day-to-day role looks like. And I think yours might be the closest thing to catnap for our kind of fashion technology audience that we've ever had, because you've made the lateral step from being the top flight of some highly recognizable brands, Northface, Board Riders, into probably the most dynamic, interesting, volatile kind of stage of a technology takeoff, which is the point at which A venture-backed innovation first companies going through the process of industrialization and commercialization. I think we'll get back to your history and how you ended up in tech and what drew you here in the first place. But right now, tell me how your time is divided. How much of your typical kind of week or month or day is spent on factory floors with machinery, in meetings with development teams, visiting partners, or working to get Onspawn's Vega platform actually embedded into the supply chain? speaker-1: Yeah, no, it's a great, great first question. And it it's definitely very different than what I what I did in my prior in my prior roles for sure. But what it looks like right now is that it's probably around it moves a little bit from month to month, but it's it's probably around a third, a third and a third. So a third of my time with partners, commercial partners like brands and manufacturers in in their offices, also in our ⁓ in our factory building 'cause You know, we we we like to show our machinery, we like to show our tech, and it's really where you that's really where you see it where you see it come to life. And a third is probably in ⁓ capital fundraising, which is part of any any startup, right? So and I include sort of the the the work that we do with our boards in that we're we're a we're a we're a deep tech company in in the industrialization phase, and that phase is very capital hungry. So that's always a ⁓ part of the of the job and and you know pretty pretty much permanent. And then the third is internal, right? I whether it's engineering reviews, whether it's reviewing test plans with the with the team, whether it's talking about operations, whether it's talking about hiring or creating, you know, maintaining the incredible culture that we have at at Unspun. So it's it's ⁓ it's probably around a third, a third, a third. And well I think what is really exciting for me in when I joined Unspun is that everything is so tangible, right? Our we have a microfactory in Emeryville. The machines are here. We start our day with a 9 a.m. stand-up with the whole with the whole team. When I was at North Face or at Boardwriters, the the product was made, you know, n nine 9,000 miles away from my from my desk. So here I can I can watch a pair of pants come off the machine bef before we before we get our day going. Right. And I think it that tangibility just changes the way you run a a company and you ⁓ you ⁓ interact with the team. It's it's really it's really tangible and it's it's it's really co it's really concrete. So that's the part that really excites me. speaker-0: A very unusual thing for a tech company in particular. I think a lot of people are accustomed to working on software which is just ephemeral in nature. So you're you're in a very unique position there. Yep. The second thing we ask our guests to do is try and define some things. And you'd be surprised at how often asking somebody to pin down what seems like a simple term can give away something or kind of get them talking about something from a different angle. And with you, I want to pick up a term that everyone's familiar with, and then I want to add another word to it that I think speaker-1: That's true. speaker-0: will probably leave a lot of people with a much less clear picture. So everybody listening to this is comfortable with what a woven fabric is. And everyone listening to this is also going to be familiar with 3D in a few ways. You know, you know, geometry, mesh, and texture design, additive manufacturing, 3D print, maybe 3D knitting, because I've recently interviewed ⁓ Garrett Gerson, a CEO of variant 3D. And people have some experience of seamless knit constructions like Nike fly knit ⁓ shoe uppers and things like that. 3D weaving Different prospect. So walk us through and help me define what exactly is 3D weaving as it's embodied in Unspunts Vega and what makes it interesting enough or gives it enough runway that somebody in your senior position as a brand leader would be swayed to come and work on this rather than staying in the brand side of things. speaker-1: Yeah, that's great. Well, as your audience knows, right, there's ⁓ the the the apparel market effectively consists of woven and of knit fabrics. The and and it's about fifty fifty. So when you look at the weaving side of the apparel market, traditional weaving makes a flat fabric, right? And then y the the way that it's it's been done for like decades for in in my feeling, all you know, ⁓ maybe maybe even longer than that, is that you have that fat fat flat fabric, you cut shape out of that fa ⁓ you you you cut shapes out of that fabric and sew them together and then you create a final a final product. And all of the the things that I think are challenging with the apparel manufacturing process lives in the multitude of steps that you that you have to go through. So the waste on the cutting floor, the labor in the sewing, the the the lead time because you do most of that because of the the cost of labor and labor arbitrage. has moved to the has moved to Asia, right? In in in over the over the last over the last couple of decades. And effectively what we do is that we have a machine which we call Vega and it weaves the shape itself. So thousands of individual yarns, we have 3,000 yarns going into a into a core, into a into a loom that effectively interlaces warp and weft yarns directly into a Seamless three-dimensional tube. So it's it's it it it creates a circ, it it makes a circular motion. The weft yarn gets we gets woven in in this in a circular in a circular way, and that creates a three-dimensional tube, which in our case is a pant leg, which is can also change geometry and diameter as it weaves. So we can we can change the we have variability in the in the weaving dimensions as we weave. So wider where it needs to be wider. And more tapered and narrow where it needs to be where it needs to be that way. So there's there's no there's no cutting, right? There's a pair of pants if effectively it it is is seamless, which is pretty unique because that's that hasn't been done before in the woven space. So it's a woven cloth, which you so you get the structure, you get the hand, you get the durability that make a woven ⁓ a woven, but ⁓ it is completely seamless and it's made from yarn to final fabric in one in one step. through the loom. So that's a f the the you know the the the the marrying of weaving and and 3D. It's slightly different than 3D knitting, certainly in terms of the the way the speed of the process, because 3D knitting is relatively slow. And with that it it it's so far it's it's it stayed, you know, at at relatively high price points and and it ⁓ made it made it niche. we can do a pair of hand legs in about eight minutes. So that means we can do we can run this process at scale and at cost. Right. And that's what makes it really exciting. That was part well you know, to the second part of your question, one of the things that really convinced me because I have spent the last twenty years the other side of this supply chain, right? And I I've seen the I've seen everything that is challenging about the supply chain. Long lead times very, very complex. The last couple of years it's only gotten It's gotten more fragmented with geopolitic if it started with the pandemic and then and and then geopolitics and then more more recently with tariffs. So supply chains continue to fragment and it there and there's risk in supply chains. And because our effectively makes it makes it on demand, it makes it you know, you you you you can do it local you can do it locally because you can and effectively as on machines, you know, in Europe or in the US, you can make it on demand so you cut out a lot of the lead time. And with that, you cut out a lot of the inefficiency out of the system. And that because it it promises to completely redefine and revolutionize the way that apparel is made, ha having seen the challenges with the old production the the way of doing things, you know, being part of something that revolutionizes this and and finds a solution for a lot of the financial waste and and inefficiency, but also the carbon footprint carbon footprint and it and the you know the environmental. waste that it that old legacy system creates for me was just really exciting to be part of. speaker-0: Yeah. And we're gonna get, I think, into some of the scale, ⁓ and the the ease of the the the vision for the ease of deployment in the US or anywhere else. ⁓ I don't I don't ⁓ don't think I'd necessarily realize that you had a a low cost play here as well. ⁓ because I think in my head you you know, you hear innovation. Your innovation in production, innovation in materials, innovation in finishing, you automatically attach a rider to it that says this is now a premium product. This is now something that has to amortize and make back its cost by the final product being expensive. Seems like that's not the ambition here. speaker-1: That's not no. I mean, I I think ⁓ the what what is unique about this technology that it it does that, right? It there is an innovative this is a very innovative new technology and there is an innovative consumer benefit, which is seamless w seamless pants, which effectively are more comfortable garments. So there's that side of it. But the fact that we could do this at cost and at scale now means that the labor arbitrage that effectively was the main reason for putting production into low l low wage countries is now going away. And we can now we can now economically and financially feasible do production in the West, which is our our main target markets are Europe and the US, because we feel that the lead time reduction, that is the main part which really is a core benefit of our system. comes to life best when you're close to the consumer, which is in, you know, the the major market for for us are are the US and and Europe. speaker-0: Cool. And I want to see a little bit more about Unspun history here, because I've personally been familiar with the company for a while. I interviewed Kevin Martin, your CTO, on stage in Paris one time, ⁓ and Beth Espinette, who's your CPO these days. ⁓ she's written for us at least once. Now, I'm testing the specifics of my memory slightly, but in the earliest days I remember Unspun being outwardly a brand to begin with. ⁓ that's how I that's how I think a lot of people were familiar with it, producing custom fit jeans. But inwardly It was a technology company using that consumer facing brand as a way to prove its vision and test its technology. ⁓ nowadays the brand served its purpose and you've you've removed your remit onto everything we've talked about, which is the vision to bring manufacturing back to the US, to bring it back to Europe. ⁓ in the US in particular, you've got letters of support from a couple of the country's biggest retailers, REI, co-op, Walmart. Now, I know the brand part predates you joining the company, ⁓ but your sufficiently embedded in the culture now. You mentioned the culture earlier. Tell me what it feels like tell me what feels like it's remained consistent and constant from that initial founding pilot, that brand experiment, to where you stand today, where you're talking to some of America's biggest retailers. Cause that to me feels like a very big journey. speaker-1: Yeah, no, that's ⁓ that's a that's a that's a great question. I I think what's what's absolute absolutely stayed intact is the core conviction that you should make a garment only after you know that someone actually wants it and not twelve months away, right? Because I think the one of the biggest challenges with the current supply chain is that you have to order nine to twelve months out, which is invariably you're gonna get a lot of that wrong and there's there's just a a big gap between supply and demand. And that's where a lot of the financial but also environmental waste in the apparel supply chain comes from. So the the core conviction with the where the where Unspun started, which effectively was hey, we can make a pair of custom made jeans for you, you know, played on that same on that same thesis, right? We are producing someone after someone has indicated that they want it. So being very close to the consumer. That pro that's and effectively being an on-demand model. That has stayed the same, right? We are still a an on-demand model because now instead of nine to twelve months out, you can order one to two months out. That's effectively a 70, 70 to 80% reduction in the lead time of your of your garment. And that's huge, right? That cuts out so much waste and f and inefficiency from the supply chain. So those things have stayed true. Now the the the model around it is ⁓ a little different, right? Because now we've pivoted from being con being a direct-to-consumer brand that you know that has a website where you can where you can order your custom jeans to a technology company that is selling machines to manufacturers around the world so they can benefit from the from the technology and from the reduced lead time and from all the efficiency that we bring to the table. So Diff different model but is the same core conviction. Does does that make sense, Ben? speaker-0: It does, it does. And I think the the the undercurrent of what you were saying there as well is if you do print ⁓ you know, if you if you if you produce on demand or if you are able to cut that like 70, 80% out of the lead time, it changes the kind of brand you can be. And and I think I think that's the sort of thing that you you only know if you've tested it and proven it out yourself. Because you can be most brands, I'd argue, but basically every brand is structured on that nine to twelve month lead time is is baked into the way that they operate. And it then that carries through from everything from design development, sourcing, production, marketing, advertising and so on. Cut that out, or a big portion of that out, you can be a different type of company. You don't just be you don't just get to be the same company but faster. ⁓ and and I think to me that's that's a really important unlock for any kind of domestic on demand production. speaker-1: Yep. I think that I think you're a hundred percent right. 'Cause now all of a sudden, you know, there's there's trends that there's shorter term trends that you can play on versus having to predict those things nine to twelve months out. And that's just a completely that's a completely different way to approach your your business. I think that I think you're a hundred percent right. speaker-0: Now, reshoring in America specifically carries a different weight today than it did even a couple of years ago. You know, you you mentioned tariffs already. There's a lot of geopolitical upheaval going on, and all of that is combining to light a fire underneath the idea of made in America. ⁓ and no doubt that's providing a tailwind to what you're doing at Unspun right now. Do you think those conditions will last? Because everything we've just talked about, right? Automated on demand manufacturing that can be done domestically is going to sound very appealing. It lets you be a different type of company and so on. Does that appeal whether the outward conditions changing back to where maybe offshore production becomes slightly more favorable again? Or is there more to the macro picture than just hedging against whatever's in the mind of the current administration in America? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I I I think our our idea lives independently of that. It's it's obviously been a giant tailwind for us because it's only made the case for reshoring bigger, right? The def the the fragmentation of supply chain, then the financial implications of tariffs on top of that has all made the case for for made in America or made in Europe stronger. But I would say the core aspect of our business really is about reducing lead time. Right. And that lives regardless of how high the tariff is or you know what you know where where you where you have your original production. Right. Lead time reduction and and being able to do production locally and and on demand lives independent of of any tariffs. So if it it's it's now a tailwind, but if they were to go away and production and it it becomes you know economically feasible to do it in China ⁓ again, the nine to twelve month lead time remains if you do it in China in the old fashioned way versus our one to two month lead time if you do it with unspun in the US or in Europe. Right. So that is uncoupled from from tariffs. And that's why I think even though we're experiencing that that let's say quote unquote tailwind right now, it doesn't our our business model doesn't depend on tariffs staying intact. speaker-0: That's right. And I think so we just talked about the preconditions of the model in America, and you've entered it Europe a bunch of times. It's certainly true that the conditions you're describing, some of them are geopolitical and they are unique to America, but a lot of what's endemic to the way that the fashion works, your overproduction, your long lead times, material process waste, and so on, the big issues in Asia and Europe as well. Tell me how portable you think the Unspone model is and What do you believe you need to accomplish domestically? So you're in America. What do you think you need to accomplish over there before you try to take the vision to Europe? Or are you ready to do that now? You know, how many domestic hubs in the US is enough for you to be able to say, We can demonstrate the economics here, we can demonstrate the lead time benefits here, this is a model that can work anywhere. speaker-1: I think the model could work anywhere right now. And the reason I say that is because the labor arbitrage goes away. Right. We the the effectively the the the financial benefits from the on-spond model live through one automation. So not having to have people cut and sew anymore. And then secondly, the inventory the the inventory forecasting benefits because of because of lead time reduction. Right. Those are the two those are the two main things. So The our model finan is financially feasible doing it in the US because of those two factors. And it's it at the same time, it's all it's also financially feasible to do it in Europe. Is as a matter of fact, Europe is probably a little easier because if wage labor labor rates in Turkey and Portugal, which are sort of the number one destination for for carrow production in Europe, are already lower than what they are here in the US. So if our model financially works in the US. And it does, then it all then it certainly works in Europe. So I I think I think we're all we're already there. And I think right now we're at that point where we would like to, we we need to build up these manufacturing hubs in the US. And in order to do that, we are partnering with brands as well as manufacturers to create a triangle between ourselves, brands, and manufacturers and effectively ⁓ you know marry demand from brands to manufacturing capacity. that many f that manufacturers bring bring to the table and and our technology is in the middle. And and it it already wor it already works today financially. So we're we're ready to go. speaker-0: Okay. So we're talking about the actual CAS 3D weaving machinery there. We're talking about the the the international deployments of it as it is inserted into the supply chain. Let's talk about the software and the ecosystem side of things as well, because when you're talking about an innovative production methodology that you've just described, knitting ⁓ sorry, weaving in in a tube, ⁓ you your traditional design paradigm in two DCAD, three DCAD is to design pattern pieces that are then to be assembled afterwards. This is a different way of doing things. Now, I wrote a piece way back in 2021. It took me a while to find this again, because really five five years is a long time in ⁓ in covering stuff. And in that, I talked about the vision for like a CDN. So ⁓ content distribution network is is how ⁓ images and things make their way to you on the web ⁓ by getting served up from the closest ⁓ data center to you. ⁓ I talked about the CDN profession and The w the way that I was thinking about it back then was having like an asset first approach to design and production. So product creation design was centralized and it was done digitally. And then you had localized distributed nodes that did the manufacturing. Now, back then I was thinking about cut and sew microfactories, because that was just what I knew. And the handoffs between design development, PLM to CMT partners are pretty well established. What you're doing with Unspun sounds pretty close to that vision, you know, made flesh. But You're using very different hardware in the nodes, ⁓ which presumably requires a different approach to the software ecosystem for product design and development to feed it. speaker-1: It does. It does. Yeah. But I think the overall, let's say, core idea, I think is pretty close to what you had that w what you were thinking about, you know, five five years ago. I think the big difference is that sort of that last step into you the what you describe as manufacturing nodes is now effectively our our tech, right? And the way that it works is that we've effectively built a layer of software on top of the on top of our ⁓ on top of our three D weaving machine. Which tells the machine what to do. And what it the way it connects to what brands and designers are doing is that it effectively translates whatever a designer does in in Clow 3D into something that the machine can read. And there's two layers to that. There's a there's a ⁓ there's a cat layer to that, which translates design into a, let's say, a a a digital a digital version of that. And then there's the machine software, the firmware. That then translates that into something that the machine now actually does. Right. So in our model, the garment really becomes a file, right? So the the product is designed and engineered digitally, the the 3D geometry, the the weave structure, the construction, and that and that definition then compiles down to ⁓ a machine instruction. So yeah, you can you can send that you can send that file to to any node, the pr and the machine produces exactly that's that same that same garment. So that's effectively how it how it works. speaker-0: There's no so there's no requirement to buy new specialized software the way that there might be if you were working in knitting, for instance. So if you're able to say if you're able to take the existing talent and the software ecosystem that you've built up in clo, for instance, ⁓ you're not having to rip and replace that. speaker-1: No, that's exactly right. So it it's it's effectively seamlessly translated into the layer into the layer of software that sits on top of our machine that then tells the machine what to do. speaker-0: Okay, cool. Now, I we recently did a show with Stephen Bates, who is the CEO of Rheon Labs, which is a kind of ⁓ innovative ingredient technology for energy control. ⁓ they partnered with Decathlon, Edidas, a few other companies. ⁓ he and I talked a bit about what I'll call glibly like the graveyard of upstream innovation and how to avoid and ⁓ how to avoid end up ending up being buried in it. Because we've seen a lot of companies in either that kind of ingredient technology or fiber input or production innovation space where they start with a really flashy pilot or they sign a deal with one Halo partner or an educational institution or s research that allows them to pursue some cutting edge research driven stuff. And then when they hit the rubber hits the road and you get to commercial reality, it all kind of collapses when it's tasked with scaling and delivering a worthwhile return. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm understanding it correctly, unspun you've said is ready to go, ready to slot this platform into the supply chain. are there any hubs built out and running at capacity yet? And what's your read on the challenges that stand between where you are right now and where you're aiming to be? What can you do to avoid ending up where those other upstream innovators have? speaker-1: No, obviously we don't wanna end up in the in in in that graveyard, right? Right. So I think the where we s where we're starting is from a really strong foundation, which effectively is a our micro factory in Emeryville. We have seven machines there. A couple are used for R for R and D. A number of them are used for full full production. So that's where we that's why we know that the tech is ready for deployment. Right. So I think I think that's number one. Our our primary model is ⁓ as I said before, is selling machine machines to manufacturers, right? Which and those machines slot into their existing into their existing production system. Obviously there's going to be some changes versus how they do things today, but it doesn't it, you know, it's it's it's an it's an add-on to their current manufacturing setup. So then we on the other side we we ⁓ we partner with brands that buy that buy garments from these suppliers And usually those buyers are the buyers that they already buy from. So we we slot into existing commercial relationship. We don't ask either brands or manufacturers to bet on a startup or or a a you know the a a vendor that has zero zero track record, right? That's that's number one. Secondly, we are v maniacally focused on our industrial metrics, right? We we hired Andy Hamilton who came from ⁓ came from Tesla and Red Moot Materials. And his whole mantra is around uptime repeal repeatability and quality yield. Right. So OE validated in our in our own micro factory in Emeryville. We're creating production conditions there before we ship we we ship a machine. So we we are putting in place a very rigorous framework around around deployment and about repl deployment readiness. So we know we know that we are there. As I said, we are we are forging and you refer to some of the some of the ⁓ the you know the ⁓ the agreements that we've signed with a number of ⁓ you know large manufacturers and retail brands here and and also in in in in ⁓ in europe where we are marrying manufacturing capacity with ⁓ demand demand from brands and that's that our intent is to you know build those first manufacturing hubs here in the US and in ⁓ and in Europe. speaker-0: Cool, good answer. Now, when I spoke to Kevin on stage in Paris a couple of years ago, we got into the idea that you kind of need a different framework for evaluating the value of producing in country on demand to the one you use for offshoring. You you we've already talked about the labor arbitrage and time saving and so on. The the the essence being that looking at unit cost alone ignores a lot about where profitability and risk actually come from. That being said, people are very much in a unit cost mindset. That is the way that brands are conditioned to think about production. Unspun has planted a bit of a flag now in this place, ⁓ as part of your announcement ⁓ of of some of those partnerships you just talked about. You're aiming for a 400 to 500 basis point gross margin improvement for brands, ⁓ as well as the reduction in time to market that we talked about. I think we can all understand the time scale side of things. You and I you and I have done that one to death now. ⁓ where does that extra margin come from? And Crucially, how much of the way that brands currently think about forecasting, capacity planning, pricing, mark planned markdowns and things, how much needs to change for them to get that kind of return? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a great question. It it really goes to the heart of of what we do best. Right. So I think the the the lead time reduction that I've been banging the drum ⁓ on today is directly related to the financial, the the business case and the gross margin impact and the and the uplift. The reason I say that is because if you right now, an average apparel retailer discounts around forty percent of the units that they that they Put that they have an inventory on a seasonal basis, right? And that starts or early in the season with low discounts and then it goes and then the discounts go up as the season progresses and ⁓ as you know as you go towards, you know, end of s end of season sale. But in general, let's say 40% of the units go at some level of discounting, let's say, you know, 30, 30% discount. If you then say, and I'm and I'm honing in, there's other aspects to our tech to our To our business case that also that arts are also creative financially. But let's focus on this one right now because I think it's the main one. If you then say, okay, because you don't have and and by the way, that that 40%, a lot of that comes from the fact that there's just an inherent mismatch between supply and demand if you have to order 12 months out, right? You have to make an inventory forecast. And again, I've lived this for the last 20 years, right? So I this was the biggest. This was the biggest challenge that we faced every single season, balance sheet wise and and PL-wise. So if you now say instead of 12 months out, you can you can reduce that to one to two months, and your forecasting accuracy goes up, and you assume that the 40% now gets closer to, let's say, an industry. Let's let's take the industry best that is Zara, right? They've got the system figured out, at least on part of their supply chain, and they discount around on the on the part that's that's made close in in their sort of manufacturing ecosystem in Europe, that percentage is about 15%. So if you instead of 40%, you now discount 15% of your inventory at 30%. That alone is around four four to five hundred basis points. On top of that, you if you don't have to pay tariffs because you now do do it locally, you don't have to pay transport because you now do it locally. That is accretive on that that is gross margin on top of that. I I haven't even I haven't even factored that in, right? Because we are so we're very confident that the the the business case for a brand is very accretive. We're also very confident that the business case for a manufacturer, again, we we work with both, right, in the triangle for a manufacturer because of the automation and because of collapsing six to seven steps into one step, which has a positive effect on your material cost. You don't have to flat you don't have to weave flat fabric, then ship that somewhere else, then cut then cut and sew. All that gets collapsed into one step. And that has a that that effectively lowers your materials cost by 50 to 60%. On top of that, the automation of the of the process and there's there's a in our in in our math, there's there's in over four to five years You can double your margin at when you're a manufacturer of of apparel versus the legacy, the legacy supply chain. So four to five on a basis point at minimum for brands, a a doubling of your operating margin as a manufacturer. And that shows that it that this technology really is accretive from a financial perspective. And I haven't even talked about the fact that it because we we cut out the overproduction, we cut out the transport. And we cut out the production waste because there's no cun and sew. The environmental impact, the positive environmental impact of the technology that we bring to bring to market is very significant as well. The study that we did is, you know, a couple of years ago indicates that it's around fifty percent of the carbon footprint versus legacy supply chain. So both financially as well as from an from a carbon footprint perspective, the savings are substantial. speaker-0: So there's there's benefits to brands there, there's benefits to manufacturers there. Now, that's particularly interesting because in order to realize those mutual benefits, somebody kind of has to go first. And let me explain what I mean by that. So presumably Walmart REI that you mentioned specifically and others, ⁓ they've they've signed those kind of commitments and announcements because they see those potential returns, right? And the manufacturers that you're working with will be seeing the same thing. Now, those letters don't contractually lead to any purchase orders or volume commitments unless I may so what let's talk about what we think the next steps are to go from those kind of partnerships of principle to reliable POs. ⁓ because if I think back to the conversations I've had with brand owners here in the UK about domestic production. Yeah. The biggest barrier they've mentioned is that local manufacturers don't have enough reliability and consistency on their order books to allow them to switch models to do this the that kind of maths that you're talking about there, at least without government support. Now I know it's different in Portugal and places like that where there are subsidies and sponsorships and things to support microfactories. This makes it a bit of a chicken and egg problem because brands are gonna struggle to place on demand production different maths orders through infrastructure that isn't there yet. And manufacturers are going to struggle to bet on building that infrastructure without knowing they have forecastable, predictable demand for it. To people on like at what point does this become viable for both parties so that people can make these decisions and forecasts based on something tangible? speaker-1: Yep, absolutely. And that I think that's the that you're you're you're hitting at the crux of what's important for us in this in the step that we're currently making, right? So because as we deploy machines into the world, we need to marry up the demand from the brand side with the supply from the manufacturer side. And that is the that is the great balancing act that we're that we're that we're trying to do. We have to bring these these three these three nodes of the triangle together. Now where we are currently is that we are seeing really good traction with that. We there's we are in ⁓ we are in advanced conversations with Arvind, who are a manufacturer that is bas a vertic ⁓ a vertical, ⁓ vertically integrated apparel manufacturer in India that ⁓ you know, potentially has their eyes on the US as well at some point in the in the future. But the first step with them would be, would be in India. They work with the largest brands in the world, whether it's Gap or Levi's or or or PVH, et cetera, et cetera. And so they are a world class, a world-class manufacturer, very innovation minded, very sustainability minded as well. And they've got their eyes on our on our technology. We're we're the triangle there is with a Japanese brand called Muji, who are who've done advanced sample development with where we're in sort of in the in the final in the final stages. So that would that is one part of the of the stool. That's secondly, we we've been doing work with Walmart. You mentioned you mentioned them earlier in the conversation as well. We're also in it in advanced stages of sample development with them. We are connecting them with a manufacturing partner in the US, which by the way is not an easy task because there's real there's really not a whole lot of man ⁓ apparel manufacturing left in the US, as you know, right? But there's a number of there's a number of parties that are that are very advanced and and very interested in in this technology as well. As you have probably seen, we've we've ⁓ put out a press statement around our intent to build a facility in New Mexico. The new Mexican state government is ⁓ is is ⁓ putting a lot of support behind putting bringing advanced manufacturing back to the state of New Mexico. So to your point on government subsidies, right? This is this is one of those areas where we could where we could potentially use that. So that's number two. So a US hub with Walmart as the base and and and and ⁓ supplement it with REI and some of the other brands that we've that we've signed MOUs with. And the third the third leg of the stool right now is that we are also lining up a number of pilots, if you will, from our manufacturing hub in Emeryville. We as I said, we have a number of machines that can do that can run production at very at very high reliability and speed. And there's no reason not to use those machines. So we've had conversations with brands like Philson and and and Patagonia. We're talking with JCrew and with Banana Republic and and and ⁓ as part of the Gap family to potentially do a a that's you know, though and those runs are not huge, but they're ways, low risk ways. for brands to step into our technology, see that it works, see the quality of the product, sell out, you know, sell through with their consumers and and see that there's consumer uptake. And then that can lead to that can lead to larger orders in the future. Right. So those are just ways to feed and to get around sort of that chicken and egg ⁓ problem that you mentioned, which is real, right? It is, it is real. But there's multiple ways in which we're approaching that right now. speaker-0: Okay, cool. Good answer. You talk about creating kind of well, you said not a lot of power manufacturing left in America, also the case in the UK. you talk about with the Unspun model, s when it scales, creating skilled American manufacturing jobs and presumably similar roles in other markets if we if the Unspun model does does expand into Europe and so on. I want to know what kind of jobs they will be. So when we surveyed 100 professionals this year as part of our AI report for 2026. The data showed us that nearly half of companies have reduced headcount as either a direct result or as a corollary effect of investing in AI. Now, AI is not the same technology as what we're talking about here, but the the reason I bring it up is that people have reported that specialist skills, things like pattern making and 3D expertise, were on the shop chopping block. It's not just admin or merchandising or what have you. There's there are some highly specialized skills in there. So Any ambition to not just protect, but actually net create specialized jobs in manufacturing sounds like a positive step. At the same time, there's part of me that feels like the level of automation with something like Unspun t runs the risk of tipping this into the like it's a cliche where people say, ⁓ you know, a lot of you are going to be replaced by robots, but we'll need to keep some of you on to retrain to maintain the robots. ⁓ it's a cliche for a reason. Tell me what you think the manufacturing jobs of the future that Unspun is involved in helping sustain and create look like. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and then to underline your point, right? I I think the jobs that we're that we're creating in Europe and the US, those are jobs that have left decades ago, right? So the it though i anything that we create locally here are net new jobs, right, in the gar in the garment industry because there aren't any right now and we're bringing them back. Now are do are those the same jobs that the the legacy apparel supply chain you know b ⁓ employed? No, they're not, right? They're they're different. They're they're textile technicians, they're maintenance people, they're quality engineered, they're really skilled industrial roles, also with industrial wages, right? These are not these are not entry-level minimum wage sewing jobs, right? And and I I I think as especially the the the the some of the skills that your survey shows potentially being replayed, which is ⁓ you know, yeah, I think you meant you mentioned pattern making, 3D, extra. That is exactly what we need more of, right? Every every garment that we make has to be fully engineered digitally before a single yarn moves. So so pattern knowledge doesn't disappear in our world. It actually becomes more important and it moves into it almost moves into the product file, right? And it becomes more valuable because the file, as I said, if if effectively is the factory inst is the machine instruction. Right. So we hire we hire for those skills and they need to continue to be part of the of the ecosystem that we that we create. So it's ⁓ I I think it's an it's a net ad, it's a net ad of new and interesting jobs that are not being AI'd away. speaker-0: That's a good answer. Final question. If all this works out domestically, internationally, what do you think apparel production for woven garments specifically looks like a decade from now? speaker-1: Yeah, I think that's a ⁓ that's a that's a that's a great that's a great question. I mean, I I I think with technology like ours, right, I think the the biggest single metric that's going to change is overproduction. Right. We're we're moving towards an an an on-demand and custom made model in apparel. If if you sort of marry what we're doing right now with the original premise of the company, which was around a personal fit. Right. Those two things lead to a custom made on-demand manufacturing model that is gonna be that is that is that is highly innovative and effectively cut out cut cuts out any type of overproduction that we that we have today. So from a mass sort of, you know, mass manufacturing model to a to a custom made and ⁓ an on-demand on-demand model. that is being done being done locally. Now, how many how many hubs that is in the US do we have, you know, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast, and one in the middle? Or are there 35 hubs throughout the country? Or is it even more distributed to where, you know, i you know, you could even extend this to everybody's everybody has a 3D, has a has a 3D printer in their house, right? That was the original premise around around 3D printers. It never really happened. So this may not happen for apparel production because that may be a step too far, but it kind of illustrates the point that there is a there is a distributed model around on demand custom custom manufacturing that is not there today, that will be when w and our technology is one of the facilitators in in that process. And I think that's that's gonna be a fundamental change to how apparel is made ten years from now versus where it is today. speaker-0: Perfect. Well, ⁓ if I'm still doing this ten years from now, I will bring you back on and we'll see how that went. R and Aaron's thank you so much for joining me. I've enjoyed this conversation. speaker-1: Really appreciate it, Ben. Thank you so much. Good luck. speaker-0: And that's the end of my talk with Arn. As I said at the top, he's someone who's been extremely close to a problem for a long time on one side and is now hands-on with what he believes is the solution on the other side. And I think that shows. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. I'd like to get Arn back someday, but in the meantime, I'm gonna end up with a very different guest next week, I'm sure. As always, thanks for listening. These interviews are still my baby. I still love doing them every Thursday. But if you fancy something a bit lighter, a bit easier to fit into your morning commute, check out the edit, which is our Quickfire News Analysis show. That comes in under 25 minutes. It's a more relaxed conversational format and it comes out every Tuesday right here. You don't need to subscribe to a separate show. It will show up in your feeds automatically. Whichever one you listen to, or if you end up liking both, thanks for being here and I'll talk to you again really soon.