About 20 percent of the world’s industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing. And the denim industry is the worst offender: Most mass-market denim brands rely on petroleum-based dyes and chemicals like formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide. In 2019, that reality inspired Tammy Hsu and Michelle Zhu to start Huue, which they spun out of Hsu’s grad school work at the University of California at Berkeley, where she developed dyes made from microbial secretions. Huue is working on the launch of its first dye, a natural-but-synthetic indigo. The company’s eight scientists are also developing sustainable dyes and colorants to disrupt other parts of the fashion industry.
My parents were entrepreneurs in the apparel industry. Their brand focused on urban streetwear in the late ’90s and early 2000s, which was why denim was such
