We had the pleasure of having CEO and founder Franziska Anna Michel of YOONA Technology in Berlin take time to answer our questions about technology and sustainability. Yoona Tech uses artificial intelligence to automate the fashion design process. The sustainable fashion future is already here.
1. What is Yoona Technology about? What problem do you solve?
YOONA Tech is the new worldwide leader of digitization in design processes. The main product is a scalable Artificial Intelligence based B2B software solution, which shortens the fashion design process to only some simple clicks. By using design, sales and trend data YOONA proposes new collections, single designs, prints, materials or color concepts.
YOONA brings efficiency and productivity to the design corporates. The YOONA Tech is committed to encourage conscious consumption and drive sustainability through the automation of processes. With the lockdown regarding COVID 19 it became more than ever visible how important holistic digitization is in the fashion industry. Not only to work in a fully sustainable way, but also to be able to carry on an efficient work process without hindrance. Designers are still working manually and need a lot of time to produce designs. They are working with Photoshop, Illustator or even sometimes still with the pencil. Performance analyses are done with MS-Excel Sheets. Under these circumstances the design process is time consuming and the fashiondesign companies need a lot of designers to keep up with the rythm.
Every year, 724 fashion companies produce 8688 collections designed in over 6million hours at the cost of EUR 4 Bn. YOONA cuts half of this cost estimating a total adressable market of EUR 2 Bn. YOONA automates the design process by using Neural Networks like Generative Adversarial Networks and Style Transfer. The fashion industry was struggeling for ages to combine economic and sustainable goals. With the YOONA Technology companies can generate objective and customer centric designs which will reduce overproduction and reduce garment waste .
2. What makes your technology so special?
We are using one of the latest technologies to generate designs and for digitizing the whole design circle. Our team has deep experience in the design industry. I think the latest technology mixed with our knowledge of what is the need makes our product special.
3. What do you understand by sustainability in the fashion industry?
As I said we believe that sustainability can be only archived together with technology. By creating objective designs based on customers data companies avoid overstock and over production. Customer centric designs means that sales can be calculated and planned.
Furthermore by using the YOONA Technology and digital design in the holistic way resources will be saved and garment and material waste will be avoided.
4. Circular economy is seen as a chance for a sustainable fashion world? Do you contribute to the circular economy of the fashion world? How does this exactly look like?
I believe that technology is an important enabler in reaching the circular value chain in the fashion industry. Examples for circular economy are automation indesign creation, customer centric garments and resource efficient processes. Technology provides all that. Processes aside, digital designs are inherently circular because they are infinitely reusable and they don’t consume materials.
5. Why did you choose Berlin as your business location?
Traveling to many places in the world, where I also lived and worked, I could see for myself that my network and my base is in Berlin. For me it was the best and the only way to built YOONA.
photocredit by Anna Franziska Michel
www.yoona-tech.com