Nan Fung is a classic Hong Kong success story, first making its name as a yarn manufacturer before diversifying into property and shipping. In 2013, managing director Vanessa Cheung, granddaughter of founder Chen Din-hwa, decided that the company’s defunct mills deserved a future.

Five years and HK$700 million later, new bridges have linked two of the original buildings, there are public parks (with thriving herb and vegetable beds) covering the roofs, and glass has taken the place of an entire concrete wall. But Tse’s stroll down memory lane is still signposted by pieces of history: the old factory gates have been incorporated as decoration, battered fire buckets act as signage, and concrete columns have been deliberately left as stark and unadorned as they were in the days when the city was a manufacturing powerhouse.

The Mills is starting to hum with activity once again, with plenty of nods to its industrial past. One of the new tenants is Fabrica, an incubator for start-ups cross-pollinating fashion, textiles and technology. Even before The Mills fully opens this month, Hong Kong’s first consumer-orientated upcycling operation – named Alt – has been turning out new garments woven from old clothes. The process – cleaning, disassembling and rejuvenating – can take as little as four hours: an object lesson to a throwaway society.