BLUE CAST Ep213 - Progressing Prosperity Denim

BLUE CAST Ep213 - Progressing Prosperity DenimThis BLUE CAST Episode, Dennis Hui talks with Stafford Lau Director of Prosperity Textile (H.K) Ltd and Stella Blu LimitedDennis HuiGlobal Business Development Manager, Denim Lenzing Fibers (HK) LimitedStafford Lau is the Director and Co-founder of Prosperity Textile (H.K.) and Stella Blu Limited.   His family began the textiles business 50 years ago with 2 dyeing factories successfully built and experienced the brightest period of textile industry in Hong Kong. He graduated from the York University in Toronto with a Bachelor of Business and Administration degree in the mid-90s and decided to pursue his career in his family business and became the second-generation entrepreneur.Establishment of 2 Denim fabric brandsIn the early 2000s, Stafford switched their products from woven to denim fabric and help to establish 2 new denim fabric brands - Prosperity Textile in 2003 and Stella Blu in 2017.  During the early stages, their denim fabric business mainly came from local garment factories in China.  In order to build their reputation and expand their mill to overseas markets, Stafford has been actively involved in  many international exhibitions over the last decade to push Prosperity into the global arena. With aid of his leadership, Prosperity Textile became the first Chinese exhibitor in Premiere Vision and Denim by PV.  Until now, they are still one of the core exhibitors at the US & Amsterdam Kingpins show as well as the key denim fabric supplier and strategic partner for many US, Europe and Japanese brands.Apart from connecting with global buyers, Stafford also actively cooperates with global material suppliers, such as Lenzing, Dystar and Archroma on product development. Prosperity Textile successfully became the pioneer of Tencel application in denim fabric by collaborating with Lenzing and launched a road show and denim tour in China and Hong Kong in 2015. Stafford strides along his denim journey full of enthusiasm and creating new possibilities with denim, thus creating his second denim brand. Stella Blu breaks the habits of traditional denim by adding and combining different elements such as yard dyes, corduroy, and special dobby with indigo element which helps enlarge possibilities for denim fashion in T-shirts, jackets and even yoga pants addressing high tier customers in the US and EU. Sustainability EffortDenim is considered to be one of the most polluted industries in the world. To change this, Stafford has been highly involved with sustainability development in their mill.  Currently, they aim to raise the water recycling rate to 65% and upgrading mill production facilities to attain less energy consumption. In terms of product development, lot of efforts were put on increasing sustainable material base - not only recycled contents and degradable materials, but also working with brands for exclusive sustainable close loop models. Since 2019, he became an active committee member in the Transformers Foundation, thus learning and launching more ethics and sustainable innovation in the industry. BLUE CAST by TENCEL™ / CARVED IN BLUE®A podcast series created by Michael Kininmonth and Tricia Carey from Lenzing’s TENCEL™ Denim team. Each month, they will host an in-depth talk with a special guest working in the industry or on the fringes of the denim community. Listen for discussions on sustainability, career trajectories, personal denim memories and more.Graphics, recording and editing by Mohsin Sajid and Sadia Rafique from ENDRIME® for TENCEL™ / CARVED IN BLUE®.Find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @carvedinblue. And get in touch [email protected]://carvedinblue.tencel.com/https://www.youtube.com/c/bluelenzhttps://bluecast.buzzsprout.com