Ep 56—FRESH BLOOD, Part 1: A Different View of the Future with Kaela Bonaquist and William Wood

This is our second two-part special, and this time I step back and listen.Fresh Blood is about renewal. Every industry either regenerates itself or slowly hardens. In this episode, I sit down with Kaela Bonaquist from Lenzing and William Wood from Material Exchange to hear how the next generation sees denim, sourcing, fibers, and technology.They are already inside the system. Upstream in fibers. In sourcing platforms. In the mechanics of supply chains. They are not nostalgic, and they are not sentimental about how things used to be.They talk about traceability as a baseline expectation. Digital tools as normal. Automation as overdue. Sustainability not as a marketing layer, but as responsibility tied directly to cost, incentives, and decision-making.We discuss fiber realities, cotton, polyester, Tencel, blends, and the tension between performance, price, and environmental claims. We get into transparency, government regulation, and whether parts of the industry are structurally misaligned with their own public promises.And at the end, I ask them a simple question. If you ran this industry for a weekend, what would you change?Part 1 sets the tone. This is less about criticism and more about expectation. If you enter this business today, what feels broken, what feels promising, and what simply feels overdue.If the future of denim has a different voice, this is it.Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.Kaela Bonaquist Business Development – East Coast & Canada, Lenzing Fibers Inc.Lenzing Fibers Inc., Linked-InWilliam Wood Product Development & Sales ManagerPlease follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.