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Yarn & Knitwear Super Stars

Yarns and Colors: Beyond Traditional Boundaries

Ground-breaking innovation for fancy yarns

Author: IFL Edit/Saturday, May 30, 2015/Categories: Yarn & Knitwear Stars

As the competitive pressures heat up within the fancy yarn sector, spinners are rethinking ways to add newness to their collections.
At the forefront of ground-breaking innovation is Yarns and Colors, a China-based spinner and knitter that continues to break down traditional boundaries on yarn development.
“For fancy yarn, most of the new developments tend to be on the mechanical production side. To distinguish ourselves, we focus on innovative dyeing and finishing techniques, which are harder to copy,” said Jacky Chen, director at Yarns & Colors, explaining how his company is developing new products, while also raising the barrier against copycats.
Founded in 1990, Yarns and Colors grew from a small mill into one of the country’s largest integrated yarn suppliers. With its own spinning factories, dyeing and finishing facilities, and knitting factories, the company produces both fancy yarns and high-end knitted garments.
An Integrated Solution Provider
One of Yarns and Colors core strengths is that it can combine yarn development and garment production.  Through its vertical supply chain, the company can control every step of the production. “Since we have experience in both aspects, we know how to streamline our processes and save costs. We develop our yarns so that knitters don’t need to do much treatment on the garment, which saves a lot of time and costs. That’s something our competitors couldn’t do,” said Mr. Chen.
The latest innovation from Yarns and Colors includes color-changing knitwear. Using specially treated yarn, the garment can change colors in response to different temperatures.  The growing interest in functional garments has prompted the company to begin incorporating functional elements, such as UV protection, thermal regulation and moisture management into their garments and yarns.
 “Our special products only take up a small percent of our total collection. However, the size of the order [for special products] is actually quite big.  It’s a small part of our entire product line, but it actually accounts for 20 percent of our sales,” said Mr. Chen.  
Seeing the opportunity in innovative products, the company has two different R&D teams. One works on traditional mechanical developments, while the other team focuses on developing new chemical treatment to create special effects.
A Global Network for Better Customer Support
In order to provide each of their customers with top level service,  Yarns and Colors has established a global service technical support network.
“Since most Southeast Asian factories have strong connections with China, our team in Dongguan can easily cover that area. We can help our customer solve the problems in sampling efficiently. It helps them save a lot of time and achieve quicker market reaction,” said Mr. Chen, adding that his company also has teams in Europe as well.
The Right Platform to Showcase Innovation
As a savvy player in a highly competitive market, Yarns and Colors understand the importance of marketing. The company is a regular exhibitor at both SPINEXPO Shanghai and New York.
“SPINEXPO is a great trade fair. For us, it’s a ‘must-go’ every year.  It is one of the most professional and high-end shows in our industry,” said Mr. Chen, explaining the importance of presenting his company’s new developments in an environment that really focuses on the innovative and creative side of the industry.
For the March fair Yarns and Colors is collaborating with SPINEXPO to present its color-changing knitwear and optical illation swatches, which show different pictures when viewed from different angle. 
“SPINEXPO has the best trend forum in the industry. We are delighted that we can be part of this exhibition and we always bring our most creative developments to this fair,” said Paula Cheng, creative director at Yarns and Colors.