Beth Esponnette, Chief Visionary and Co-Founder of unspun, pursued a degree in the fashion industry, seeking to participate in a glamorous industry that would allow her to unleash her creativity and make the world a more beautiful place. “What I found, though, behind the scenes, was that it was not so glamorous after all,” she says, “and I was not proud of what was happening there, particularly from a sustainability perspective. The industry continues to pump out way too much product, and too much of that ends up in the landfill. We do that because it is so cheap, and it is the only way retailers have figured out how to get people what they want when they walk into a store, which requires a ton of variables.”

In 2015, following a move from Maine to San Francisco, to an environment fueled by technology, she worked in a shop teaching sewing; the shop had just acquired a 3D printer. “It felt so low-tech sitting behind the Juki sewing machine compared to the new 3D printer,” she says, “which felt really futuristic and the way things should be going. 3D printing also felt like it was almost inspired by nature—that’s how things grow in the wild, layer by layer.” And as Esponnette learned more about the climate emergency, she also wondered why we couldn’t use the additive manufacturing concept for clothing, building garments on-demand.”

Esponnette began developing the concept for unspun in 2014 while a grad student at Stanford and founded the company in 2015—but did not want to pursue a technology startup as a sole proprietor. “I spent two years trying to find the perfect founding team,” she says. “I met Walden Lam in mid-2015 and Kevin Martin in mid-2016. We worked together remotely for a year while fleshing out the company direction. In mid-2017, we all quit our jobs to pursue unspun. I cover design, Walden is our business expert, and Kevin takes care of engineering. Our goal was to find a way to make products for people, starting with the person instead of the product.”