FASHION MADE: On-Demand Customization, with Tim Williams at YR
In this interview, Tim Williams explains how YR helps fashion brands offer on‑demand customization through an in‑house software platform that manages the entire order flow from customer design to production and shipping. He recounts YR’s early experiments with pop‑up stores in London and New York, the shift from trying to run a consumer brand to licensing the technology to other brands, and the importance of controlling the design experience to protect brand identity. The conversation expands to broader trends in on‑demand manufacturing and micro‑factories, highlighting sustainability benefits such as reduced waste, lower carbon footprints, and inventory minimisation. Williams discusses practical challenges of localised production, including the need for skilled labour, the limits of current automation, cost considerations, and the difficulty of convincing consumers to pay a premium for locally‑made, transparent supply chains. The dialogue also touches on recycling initiatives, the role of marketing versus genuine transparency, and the future potential of fully autonomous workshops.
Chapters
All right, well, I mean, we may as well crack on. You can tell me a little bit about what YR do now that we've— okay, now that we've got over the fun about—
right, I see. Okay, so, um, well, I'm glad you asked. YR, we help brands bring customization and on-demand production to life. So that means, um, really we're a software platform that these companies, our customers, can use to help them perform on-demand production right through from the customer creating a design or making an order through to the production and shipping it to the customer.
You guys had all these installations in big stores. When did this actually start? Was it 2012, 2013?
2013, we had our own pop-up store just off Carnaby Street that people could come in and create their own design, and then we printed it out. Yeah. And it was kind of like, it was interesting because people loved it. And we thought it was amazing and we could roll it out as a concept and it would be like store you could pop into anywhere in the world and sort of bucking the trend of moving to full e-commerce. We were actually thinking about opening stores and building a brand on the back of that, but actually that wasn't to be. And actually we spent a couple of years trying to make that work, but we did some amazing things, kind of had stores in New York, two in New York, one in Macy's and And they were, you know, it went really well, but it was just a non-money-making— we're trying to build a fashion brand and the customization platform and sell it to the public at the same time.
Yeah.
And really, that was a bit too ambitious.
Okay, so you scaled that down, that ambitious dream.
The ambition is even bigger, but now we're helping other brands do it. So we're making other brands kind of buy into that dream.
Have you— did you actually develop the software yourself for the customization, or have you got that from someone else?
Oh no, no, I mean it's all done in-house. I haven't done it personally.
No, your team?
Yes, exactly.
So I mean, we're saying that you represent YI at this point, right?
Right, no, you're right, sorry, I just genuinely wasn't about— You're not a coder? No, no, I mean I understand conceptually how everything works, and I think from a customer point of view, like lots of people at YI, I kind of understand what customers want to do and how they want to like design things, and lots of experience of kind of like doing these installations, you kind of learn You know, just what customers enjoy and all that sort of stuff. But yes, all of the software is our own, we develop it all in-house, and that's sort of a big part of our attraction, I guess, is that we're kind of like part software company, part agency to help these brands on that journey.
Okay, so you do help them with the design stuff as well, sort of preloading all of the designs, because I mean, if you give— we've had lots of chats with people who offer customization software, right? And the long and short of it is if you give the general public full control over design, they're going to create something pretty horrific.
Definitely. Although it is the most fun, probably. But it's true. I mean, I think you can— some brands are more adventurous than others. So some customers we work with, you know, have obviously got a much bigger store estate we've rolled out to. They've got more customers. They're kind of a lower selling point. So I guess they're going to have more customers who maybe they want to process more volume and they don't want to necessarily give people that design control. So someone like that would be Levi's, where we kind of like, it's very limited, you can put your name or initials into things and that's it. And then at the other end of the scale, there were brands that we've worked with, Skinny Dip, which is an amazing London-based mobile phone case brand and accessories and things, and they kind of let people create all these crazy patterns on the screen. So, you know, you can, you're right, in essence.
But I guess they don't have the brand identity that they're trying to protect, whereas I guess Levi's have a— yeah, I will do—
yeah, well, and also I think it's slightly different. The brand identity is that they allow a bit of creative freedom, you know. So Skinny Dip want people to kind of come in and create their own wacky designs, but even that was within a kind of set parameters that you could do. You know, you could build these amazing patterns and create these amazing designs, but it was still kind of within the parameters of certain limiting factors. But to your original question, I mean, we do help with the whole thing. So concepting what it's going to be like, what, how much control should you give the customer over it. And so, you know, for like short-term pop-ups or things which are a bit more kind of, you know, could be a bit crazier because they're trying to attract attention or they're trying to welcome a new store, whatever it is, then obviously you can be a bit more freeform and kind of a bit more risky with the brand, I guess. So we would help the brand with that decision and kind of come up with some creative and sort of what it's all, what the point of the customization is dictates that.
I want to talk a little bit about on-demand manufacturing in general as well, beyond all of the amazing stuff that YR is doing, because it feels like in the last few years, certainly the talk about things like microfacturing and on-demand manufacturing It's come about so much and people talk about it so much, it kind of feels like we've gone full circle a bit from where at the beginning, I guess, every garment manufacturer was a microfactory and that is, you know, the tailor in his workshop. Why do you think that, you know, there's so much talk about it recently in the last few years?
I do think it's interesting that it's gone sort of full circle. The technology is enabling that to happen. So you can kind of have much more sort of small-scale manufacturing plants or factories or microfactories where you can send orders, they can produce the order, and then you can ship it out directly to the client. And preferably, I guess, that would be nearer the client, the customer. So that, you know, you can actually— there's even talk of sort of repurposing shopping malls and things in the US and kind of being able to build in print facilities and cut facilities and things like that. I think there's lots of reasons why. I mean, obviously there's environmental sustainability, cutting down the amount of travel that a garment has to make to get to the end customer, and it's obviously, it reduces that overstock, the oversupply part of kind of like producing 200,000 t-shirts with X design on it, but then you only sell 20,000. You know, so by printing on demand, manufacturing on demand, closer to the consumer, you obviously reduce the Air Miles, you increase the amount of flexibility the customer has got. You can offer way more designs and kind of give them a lot more experience into it, as well as reducing that overstock.
I mean, obviously we've got the hangover from how archaic the fashion industry is at the moment, you know, and the manufacturing process is— when you really look into the waste in it, it's, um, it's quite shocking really, um, and it's surprising that more people don't know actually the True story.
Part of the reason for the archaic nature of it is the size of the industry. It takes a long time to change because it's vast and the supply chains of, you know, that t-shirt I was talking about earlier, the kind of 200,000 t-shirts, then all the different moving parts, as documentaries have shown in the past, you know, they've all got different places all around the world that specialize in these pieces. So the fabric might come from a kind of deep Middle Eastern cotton field, and then obviously that gets through somehow to Bangladesh or Turkey or, you know, one of these other manufacturing hubs that cut and sew it, and then it might go somewhere else to be printed, then finished, packed, sent to the customer. It might impact, you know, have all these different points of impact all over the supply chain that obviously it takes a long time to change all those different very expensive parts that have been built for years and years to kind of service this growing bigger and bigger fashion industry that is now kind of becoming more disparate, and consumers are kind of wanting different things, smaller niche groups. Popping up that want smaller runs of like their individual taste items and things. So I think the market's pushing the industry as well as the, the industry kind of having to wake up to it in a way.
Yeah, well, I guess there's sort of, there's always a few different elements to it and there's the big business, there's the consumer side, there's also government regulation, which I think is seriously lacking in some of these things as well. And there's also education as well. One of the things, especially with 3D design, you know, education is not actually supplying the amount of technical skills that, you know, a lot of companies need as well. There's a myriad of issues. This incredible journey that a t-shirt goes on, it doesn't need to.
No.
It's very, very possible for it to be made in UK but apart from, I guess, the raw materials. Yeah. Where would you start? Would you, if you were going to have microfactories in UK, and this isn't just a little, um, how-to for anyone that wants out there that wants to go and combat YR and everyone else trying to do micro, microfactories, but would you bring in a load of just t-shirts and like color them here, or would you bring in raw materials to UK if you wanted to bring in a micro studio? What are the benefits and challenges of that side of the argument?
The answer is, it's depending on the product. I think that's pretty key. So t-shirts are probably a good example of something where I would still, you'd still kind of understand what small, medium, large. You can buy them in bulk and then probably color them or print them or embroider them or finish them in this country to the demand, but I think when it comes to things like shirts, dress shirts, particularly a good place to start, I guess, or, you know, kind of tailored shirts that people might be more used to kind of having fitted. And then you can start to really build out from there, from a product point of view. And I think that you would take it right back to the raw components as much as possible. I mean, that seems to make most sense. I think that some of it will come down to cost, because although market forces point to it being kind of like a great thing to do, obviously do people really want to pay double the price for a t-shirt, triple the price for a t-shirt or a shirt, whatever it is? And so I think that, you know, it would be sensible. One of the interesting things, obviously, there is still quite a lot of manufacturing in the UK, and that, you know, that is kind of like innovative and interesting, and that there are obviously lots of people in the UK who could be very skilled at this. And hopefully some of the skills which people have in these industries around sort of producing garments still exist in this country? Because then obviously you've got a real great grounding for, you know, kind of having skilled people. To your point about education earlier, that's going to be key to the microfactory success, is, you know, how can you actually get these products made in the year that we're in right now without— it's not the future, it's, you know, how do we set one up now? Yeah, you'd need people who knew what they were doing, and as much as possible. So I think that's limiting as well.
But yeah, you need that skilled labor.
Yeah. Exactly.
Because you can't just get an auto, a SoBot to do it all.
Not right now, but I mean, maybe in the future. But it's kind of like, still need somebody who knows. I mean, even if you did have a fully automated production line, which is obviously the dream for sort of reducing error and cutting costs and all that sort of stuff, you still need people who know what they're doing to program the machine at the start, but also to monitor the process as much as possible and kind of understand what quality is, you know. So even if it's all fully automated, you still need some experts in there.
Yeah, you can't just switch it on at 8 and come back at 5.
Yeah, or just don't even have anyone there at all, kind of like a fully autonomous manufacturing plant. But, you know, that's not going to happen for the next few years, I don't think.
Yeah, just leave it to the robots.
Well, you know, yeah, but then there'd be nothing to do, so it'd be kind of like, you know, I think it would make it less interesting.
I think so. Yeah, that's quite exciting though, because obviously we want to bring a lot of manufacturing back to UK, you know, Brexit or no Brexit. That is something that would be a good thing for this country.
Yes.
So having that skilled labor, an autonomous workshop. I think you could sell the story as well. Like, people would pay more for a t-shirt given the current, I guess, atmosphere around sustainability. Yeah, especially given that loads of people are now hearing more about how terrible the apparel industry is in terms of sustainability, you know, potentially our top 3 polluters worldwide. Yeah, especially wastewater, things like this. I think you could get people to pay more if you were able to portray that story well enough to them to convince them that that t-shirt there traveled, you know, 40,000 miles and produced this much wastewater, and this t-shirt, you know, was made by Betty down the road and produced that much water, you know. And so I think that is a story that people would buy into.
I agree, but I just, I don't know without doing the research, because obviously you've got the— if you stop people and ask them in the street, would you buy this t-shirt that's traveled 40,000 miles, or this one which gave Betty a job, reskilled the nation, and brought more income into the UK, people would be like, well, definitely buy Betty's. But you know that actually, when it, when it actually came down to it, would people really pay extra? So I think asking people and actually coming down to it, because you know, there are many discount chains, or there are a few chains that I can think of, um, that people shop in religiously, you know. And it's kind of like they don't really think about the— they're not really buying into that brand. I mean, certainly I'm guilty of it as well, you know. If I want something and it's kind of like I'm going to wear it a couple of times, I'm not like, right, I'll go out to my favorite designer brand and purchase that, you know. I'm kind of like, I'll just nip into a thingy and grab one of them. And I think that's the difference, is you've got to have really committed consumers to buy into the that, that argument. But I do think that it's about finding the sweet spot. And obviously autonomy and, you know, kind of like reducing costs as much as possible will drive that Bettie's product down as much as possible. So that if it is just a few pounds, or, you know, it's kind of like it's not double, it's not triple the price, but it's, it's a little bit more expensive, then I agree with you. I think people would definitely do it because it just makes sense then. Um, but obviously the other thing you can do, like going back to the government thing you said earlier is obviously try and persuade people that through government control or whatever, they're actually buying locally, and that, you know, these heavy supply chains that pollute the world should be taxed more, and that that pushes that product up. But there is another thing as well, which is obviously you can use this kind of like— there's a lot of stuff coming. I think there's, there's things around at the moment, but there's certainly things coming online as well which are going to be like reusing fabric, being able to recycle actual fabric within this country or within Europe that then turns into ready-to-use new fabric that kind of reduces a lot of that waste product. But in theory, it kind of makes it even more autonomous and kind of within the country, you know, you're able to— or within the European area, you're kind of actually able to make product from scratch, effectively, from loads of waste product, which is really interesting.
That's, yeah, a very exciting thing. And obviously, as a, you know, the most recent Use of that was Adidas's Future Loop. Yeah, but again, you know, it's interesting because those, those shoes are made from 90% virgin TPU, I believe it is. And if you broke those shoes down again, only 10% of— once you've broken them down once— can be reused again. A lot of it's virgin materials. So it is a great start though, and that's you know, I guess what these guys are trying to do. And it's very difficult to break down, yeah, textiles into, you know, into their original parts.
Certainly shoe, I think I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, you can imagine, where would you start? Whereas a t-shirt, you know, if you've got a t-shirt, you can kind of see, right, it's all the same fabric, so therefore by breaking this down, I'll be able to make it into something else. Yeah. Whereas obviously with a shoe, you've got like loads of different probably, you know, chemical-based.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's all petrochemical-based. Yeah, yeah.
So I think it will start small, but it's nice to think that it'll go up. I mean, cars are an interesting place as well. I think there's some interesting facts that I'm not going to be able to quote at all, but there is something about, you know, Volkswagen kind of like, uh, recycle their bumpers, for example, their interior plastics, a lot of the dashboards, all that sort of stuff has been recycled for years. It's been made of old cars for years. Because it's actually cheaper for their supply chain. Yeah, so yeah, it makes sense, but it's also like, it's not difficult if you can break things down into components. Whereas a shoe is pretty small, I guess that's the reality.
I guess one of the things is that for these companies, it does actually— we're talking about government, we've talked a little bit about consumer behavior. For company behavior to change, I guess it's got to be more profitable for them. Yeah, that seems to be the one thing that does actually seem to change companies' behavior.
And I didn't want to cast doubt on anyone we've just been talking about, but, you know, you obviously have to separate the reality and the sort of commercial reality of doing these kind of like recycling and localized manufacturing with the kind of the PR story behind it as well. And, you know, it— I think the public need that kind of like reassurance that this is a real initiative, that there is kind of, you know, 90% recycled material that can be recycled again in this product, as opposed to the other way around, that, you know, so that the public kind of feel more happy buying into that product. Yeah. Than at the moment where it could be seen as a PR exercise in some cases.
A little bit, a little bit. But I think, you know, I get the reason why they've got to shout it from the rooftops, and like these big companies are very good at doing that. Um, you know, I understand that, and as I say, it is a good step forward. Um, but I just felt like the way that the conversation was framed was papering over the truth a little bit, whereas, um, you know, I think people do want transparency.
Yeah.
And buy into that.
Sure.
And I feel like if you're still trying to get your copywriters to write a really good headline and write a really good article through your, through your network, through your PR network, you're still missing that point a little bit. You know, transparency means transparency. Yeah. You do actually have to give people the facts. And they'll trust you for it.
I agree, but I mean, obviously it's a balance, right, between— I would think, you know, you've still got to be able to dress up that transparency in a marketing way. If we're talking about shoes, I mean, those manufacturers like Adidas and Nike have obviously got that amazing kind of like marketing bubble of like, you know, people really want their product. There's a lot of, you know, kind of sales breed more sales, kind of like people just want to buy more and more into the brand. I think even if they were fully transparent, then, you know, a brand would still have to have some marketing and kind of copywriting to dress up what they were doing, and it's just one part of what they do, right?
Yeah.
So maybe that point was redundant, but it's kind of like, um, I still think it's a real tough one, right? You know, kind of like marketing the transparent nature of everything, but the starting point should definitely be making your supply chain transparent, I guess.
With sort of on-demand manufacturing, um, microfactories, the new sort of techniques to do it. Can you, do you have any insight into these? Because obviously you're working with, I guess, on-demand printing, um, a lot. I mean, I guess it's not on-demand manufacturing where you're not sort of cutting, sewing, um, products.
No, um, it's certainly a, um, printing is like the first step, I guess. It's really easy. Yeah, that, you know, I mean, obviously I don't want to undermine what we do, but for a brand to come along.
That's like the antithesis of what we're trying to do.
No, no, exactly. Well, no, I don't think I am, but I mean, printing is a really easy step for brands to take. Obviously, it's very difficult for us, and that's why we take all the pain out of it for brands. But you can imagine that, like I was saying earlier about the kind of blank product that comes in, you can buy a blank product, you can then allow customers to click on something, choose a design, or even customize a design, and then push it through our platform or anyone else's platform and get that made on demand, and it would be printed on demand, obviously. And then the next step, I think, for everybody is, you know, a couple of steps back to see about the— how you can actually manufacture that product on demand, whether it makes sense. And obviously there are examples and companies doing that already. Unmade obviously has done that with knitting and other products that they're working on at the moment. So I think that that's quite interesting in itself, is that kind of like, you know, the dream of this supply chain that's on-demand driven, yeah, is definitely available and happening. But, um, it's, it's about, you know, what can you do today? What would consumers buy into today? What's most realistic? How can we test a lot of the processes involved? How can we see if customers are willing to do this sort of model and invest as a business into this? And I think printing and embroidery on demand is a really interesting, lightweight way into that for brands, which is what we're seeing.
Yeah, so you're seeing a lot of growth in what you guys are doing at the moment, a lot of people buying into that vision?
Yeah, I think we've come from, you know, an interesting background in that we did a lot of store installations that it was really about sort of the customer experience and the theater of what we did was key. And I think now what we're seeing is brands working with us for that, the theater and the experience is still key, But also, if we can add into that on-demand production, reduce the waste in supply chain, increase customer excitement, and kind of, you know, also bring that online as well, which we can get through our on-demand platform, then, you know, brands really like that, and that's definitely of interest to a lot of brands at the moment.
Yeah, because I guess converting that excitement that everyone feels in store when they're doing Y.A.R.T., because it's amazing, it's such a buzz around the place, Yeah, trying to convert that into a digital experience when you're not in store. Yeah, that's quite hard.
It's challenging for sure. And I think that, you know, we, we've definitely got some ways that we can do that, and that we've got, you know, we've got some exciting things coming out as well that I think help bring that experience into your hand, into the home, into wherever you are creating a design. Um, but it is, you know, you can never obviously beat the kind of how do you get that theater of watching something, designing something, and watching it being created in front of you? That's almost like a separate experience. And actually, what we're seeing is kind of like, it's almost like letting people into your microfactory. And that's kind of like, you know, it's almost like going to the brewery and seeing your favorite beer being brewed. Yeah, it's kind of like the ultimate brand experience. But actually, you can still drink the beer all around the world. You can still go and buy the products elsewhere and have the same or similar experience, but just not the kind of fully immersed experience that you can get in these stores or microfactories.
