By Flori Meeks
Ask physicist Ying Yi what inspired her to launch custom dress company MY Knitever two years ago, and she’ll tell you it was a desire to right some pervasive wrongs in an industry that has captivated her for years: fashion.
Yi, who also has worked as a model, says she worries about wasteful production practices in clothing manufacturing, including overproduction of garments that end up unsold or discarded. (According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States generates 15.8 megatons of textile waste every year on average, with only 2.5 megatons being recycled annually since 2017.) And Yi has serious issues with the fashion industry’s sizing system, particularly when it comes to women’s dresses. If a woman’s body isn’t the same size from top to bottom, dresses just don’t fit right, she said.
“Most people do online shopping at a 30% return rate, and the No. 1 reason is clothing not fitting,” Yi said. “Think about the energy and resources wasted because of the standard size system.”
Then there’s the psychological impact of struggling to find clothes that fit.
“I have so many customers who tell me, before they try our products, ‘I won’t look good because my arms are too short’ or ‘I won’t look good in a dress because my fanny’s full or my bust is too small,’” Yi said. “People have false conceptions about themselves because we have been trying to fit in the standard size, which is not our size.”
MY Knitever aims to address these issues through innovative technology. Instead of selling already-manufactured dresses, the company invites customers to select a dress style and color from its website. From there, the site guides customers through scanning their body with their phone. The scanning app sends the body measurements to one of the company’s 3D knitting machines, which then produces a knit dress proportioned for the customer’s unique dimensions.
“I’m just so happy every time I interview a customer and hear their story and how great they feel when they’re in our clothing,” Yi said. “I hope we get to spread the word so we can make this more like a movement, a movement to embrace or even celebrate ourselves.”
‘How Can We Do Things Differently?’
For Yi, becoming an entrepreneur has been the ultimate in getting out of her comfort zone.
But then again, as much as she loves physics, it has never been her only interest.
“Physics will always be my passion; I’m still teaching physics for Lone Star College (north of Houston),” she said. “I love interacting with my students; I’m a people person. At the same time, I have lots of hobbies. I’m a gardener; I do fashion shows; I’m a model.”
The inspiration for MY Knitever hit while Yi was attending a Houston fashion show with friends.
“It was a phenomenal show,” she said. “Everyone looked stunning, but I kept thinking, people have been saying that the fashion industry is the most wasteful industry right now. It hurts my heart because it is supposed to be an industry to make people feel good and look good. I said to myself, something needs to be changed.”
The industry’s size system shortcomings began weighing heavily, too. Yi’s friends have commented on it, and she has experienced it herself. Technically, she’s a size 2, but only on top.
“My upper body is very skinny, but my bottom is bigger,” she said. “If you throw me in a size 2 dress, some of the places will never fit.
“I started asking myself, ‘Is there a better way to do things?’ That’s always what engineers and physicists are thinking about: ‘Is there a different way to do it?’”
So, with the goal of creating less waste and making people feel better about themselves, Yi began a long journey of dressmaking research.
“My strength is I love learning, and I love to reason about things. I’m also very futuristic. I came to the idea of using 3D knitting — that’s the most advanced manufacturing technology we have these days.”
The dresses MY Knitever now makes, she added, are one piece of fabric. Nothing is stitched together. And because it allows for on-demand production, it eliminates overstock issues.
The second piece of the puzzle was smartphone body scanning, already available to consumers for virtual fitting rooms and online shopping experiences. With this technology, a customer takes a few photos or a short video of their body with their smartphone camera. AI algorithms analyze the images to generate a detailed 3D model of the person’s body, complete with precise measurements.
Once Yi knew what she wanted to do, her husband wrote the automation software necessary to make it possible.
“So we are the first company that successfully combined smartphone body scanning and 3D knitting,” Yi said. “We can tailor each piece to a unique body.”
The Learning Never Stops
Two years later, the company is still in growth mode, Yi said, but her customer base is increasing steadily. Most of her customer acquisition comes through social media marketing and networking.
“It’s me going out, talking to people, showing people the dresses. The fashion industry is furiously competitive, and ‘fast fashion’ (more emphasis on affordability than quality) is dominating right now. That’s not sustainable. We use premium material, the best I could find on the market. But people don’t know the brand; it’s only been on the market for two years. So it’s hard for them to trust us. When they get to look at my garments and feel my garments, they say, ‘Oh, this looks great, and it feels great.’”
Meanwhile, Yi has been relying on the habit that helped her get MY Knitever started: carving out time for learning.
“Whenever I got stressed, like about marketing for instance, I took a class from Udemy. I would take marketing classes, SEO classes, and see where I went wrong. So based on combining my own experience and the new knowledge, I became better.”
Yi also reads everything she can find about entrepreneurship.
“I remember one book telling me, don’t fall in love with your product. Always talk to your customers. So every customer I have these days, I give them a customer interview. Am I serving you right? Is there anything else you want to see? What about my product makes you happy? I started to gain so much insight from my existing customers, and that’s why our business is getting better and better.”
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