The Mills Fabrica: Fashion of Tomorrow

In April 2023, Zara launched its first-ever collection made with recycled textiles. Done in partnership with fashion technology company Circ, the collection tackles one of the biggest industry challenges – breaking down blends of polyester and cotton and creating new garments with them. It flew off the shelves.

Six months later, sustainable designer brand Mara Hoffman – currently on hiatus – became the first luxury label to join the Circ family with "The Dress That Changes Everything".

Quietly orchestrating these green sparks behind the scenes was The Mills Fabrica (Fabrica).

Fabrica, in short, is a go-to solutions platform that accelerates techstyle (an amalgamation of technology and lifestyle) and agrifood tech innovations. With offices in Hong Kong and London, it is the innovation arm of The Mills, a heritage revitalization project born from Hong Kong property developer Nan Fung Group's textile legacy in the city.

"Fabrica promotes change by bringing innovations across an industry level," says Fabrica's General Manager, Head of Asia, Cintia Nunes. "We focus on the textile and food sectors because they're responsible for more than 40 per cent of our global greenhouse emissions. The aviation industry, for comparison, contributes less than three per cent."

Spotlighting on the beginning of the fashion supply chain – think cotton growth and dyeing processes rather than design and end-of-life wear – Fabrica operates on a multi-prong approach. Circ, for instance, is just one of many promising startups to enjoy its generous investments that range from US$150,000 to three million. Aside from capital, it also hosts student competitions and incubates innovators, offering space, resources and connections to propel their growth. On the commercial end, Fabrica partners with and consults for companies to guide them towards a greener path, putting forward solutions and linking them to technology providers within or beyond its family through networking events and open-call challenges, to name but a few. When not dealing with multinational conglomerates, Cintia and her team spread their green gospel at schools ranging from elementary to post-secondary or host workshops at their retail-cum-exhibition spaces, titled Fabrica X, in Tsuen Wan's The Mills and AIRSIDE at Kai Tak.

"I remember receiving an email from a mom after a Fabrica X workshop on recycled plastics. Her daughter had apparently demanded a plastic policy at the school after the event: things like these bring a smile to our faces," she laughs, adding that Fabrica hopes to eventually infiltrate the Hong Kong school curriculum.

Such enthusiasm, she says, is not exclusive to the education sector. As terms like sustainability and climate change evolve from mere buzz words to daunting priorities worldwide – realizing concepts like environmental, social and governance (ESG) in the early 2000s – Cintia is witnessing more open arms towards their missions since she joined four years ago, albeit their varied motives.

"Schools want our expertise to embellish their STEM/STEAM programs and foster within their students a sense of empathy for the greater good, for our environment.

"Corporations are looking at sustainability out of desperation. They can foresee their businesses getting extremely messy if they don't find solutions to their operations and their source ingredients, for example. For them, sustainability goes beyond ESG – it's not just something that's good to have; it's about risk mitigation. It's not about empathy; they simply just don't have a choice," she says, adding that the record number of corporate enquiries is fueling change at a faster rate compared to consumer-led movements.

A Fabrica benefactor that appeases both Mother Nature and balance sheets is unspun – the mastermind behind a proprietary 3D weaving technology that shortens production lead times. While it proudly hoists green flags like reductions in energy usage, blue water consumption and environmental footprint, the technology also allows for small-batch and on-demand production sans inventory, meaning brands can react even faster to mercurial market demands and trends. Unspun's first commercially 3D woven products were launched during American fashion label Eckhaus Latta's Spring-Summer 2024 New York Fashion Week show. Last March, it signed a long-term partnership with retail giant, Walmart.

For Cintia, cases like unspun and Zara are especially encouraging, though she hopes to see eco-fabrics implemented in bigger volumes that go beyond one-off capsule collections. Despite their infamy for greenwashing, fast-fashion brands are her most welcomed partners as "they're the ones who need the most help".

"Dismissing plastic entirely is impossible: the problem we should be tackling is how we can manage and integrate plastic into a circular economy. We have to be realistic and stop pushing things that won't work. Finger pointing won't get us anywhere; instead, we should throw them new concepts and ideas to see how we can tackle greenwashing together in a meaningful and pragmatic manner," she says.

To sustain Fabrica's efforts in the long run, however, Cintia still believes fostering empathy with nature is the way forward – a challenge in land-strapped Hong Kong, where primary industry is almost non-existent.

"We as humans are so detached from nature, and without that connection, we are ignorant to the scale of the problems it's facing," she says. "Everything goes back to education and exposure; I hope for empathy and compassion in all of us. We should remember that all of our actions matter and that we should treat Mother Nature as a stakeholder too."

Yet, it's not all doom and gloom. As a mother to a two-year-old daughter, she reminds herself – and her team at Fabrica – that they're never alone in the battle for better tomorrows.

"When you're working in the realms of environmental social impact, you realize there are amazing peers out there who are bringing innovations that make sense. Of course, our line of work can be very depressing on some days, but we also need to be optimistic in providing solutions that ushers meaningful change," she says. "I have a different pitch for corporations and students, but at the end of the day, I want to protect the zebras and hippos – whose sounds she's learned to mimic – so they're still around when my daughter grows up."