How Does A Designer Do Business With Old Fabrics?

For the first time in the London Fashion Week (London Fashion Week), Christopher Raeburn designed and produced eight fashions with more military parachutes. Only then did he know that more than 60 years ago, his grandmother used similar fabrics, but only on her wedding dress.

Raeburn said, "I was quite surprised when my mother talked about it carelessly at dinner." In the ten years after that fashion show, he founded his own brand, mainly using excess fabric and clothing design and making single products. He also bought a large number of military uniforms from the British Ministry of defense for fabrics.

Excavating the creative use of unsalable goods has long been the only way for new designers. Unsalable goods refer to brand-new textiles and clothing that have never been bought by consumers. Jeans that are not sold in factories and shops are often cheaper than buying new materials. Moreover, the number of salable products is limited, which is very suitable for designing and producing fashion that only appears in fashion shows or sells in only a few stores.

But now, more and more designers are starting to turn slow-moving products, old clothes and other fabrics into a big business. Frugal fashion college students find that their ability to search for waste textiles from flea markets and warehouses can help them create global brands. More and more fashion industry giants have joined the ranks, including luxury brands that lead to nostalgia, and large retailers who want to improve their sustainable development by upgrading fabrics.

Reformation, purchased from shops and factory slow-moving products in Losangeles, has become a brand worth billions of dollars. Asos, a fast fashion giant, applies ancient and second-hand fabrics to the "Reclaimed Vintage" series.

Emily Bode recently held its first fashion show in Paris. Three years ago, she founded her own menswear brand, making tablecloths, French bedspreads and other unsalable products for the design of unique single products. "Every fashion has a story, whether it's a copy of the textile... It was embroidery in 1940s, "she said." some customers came only because they liked the story behind the fashion, but some customers came to the store because they really liked the tailoring of our clothes. And the concept of reutilization and reproduction.

It would be a bit boring to build new brands by producing tons of new clothes.

The defenders of the fashion industry have also promoted the application of slow-moving products in the industry, and have awarded a large number of industry awards to new designers who are using recycled materials. Bode won the final of the LVMH Prize competition this year. Recently, the winner of the International Fashion Festival (Hy RES), Cristoph Rumpf, is also an inspiration from flea market, LVMH.

"Everything I own is secondhand," Rumpf said. "If you want to build new brands by producing tons of new clothes, it's a bit boring." The student at University of Applied Arts Vienna in Vienna also said that when he graduated and started her own brand, he would continue to use the remaining fabric. "Of

Rumpf's seven set of designs for the Yale International Fashion Festival has 90% of its raw materials from unsalable goods. One of them was a dark blue jacket with gold details. He used a scarf he bought at flea market and jacquard fabric and cotton fabric, and the lapel in his coat was stuffed with foam from old car seats.

Purchasing unsalable goods can be used as an alternative to buying new fabrics. This approach can inspire designers' creative inspiration and help sustainable development, but it is not easy to operate in practice. The use of surplus fabrics at the beginning can really save money, but there will be other costs in the subsequent design and production process.

"We will incur costs when we disassemble the unsalable goods," Raeburn said. "If there are problems with purchases, for example, we buy a lot of things, but things and samples are different, this may be very painful, because you are not a roll of cloth purchased."

E.L.V. Denim logo straight jeans jeans source: each other offers

A growing brand may find it difficult to find a good quantity of unmarketable goods, so managing inventory and meeting the order needs of retailers will also be difficult. Most brands design clothing prototypes and order fabrics according to the needs of retailers. For designers using unsalable goods, this process is completely reversed: they usually buy Textiles in advance, sometimes facing competitors who are also looking for high pressure environments to purchase the same items.

"Competition is really fierce. Especially at Brimfield (a large antique exhibition in Massachusetts), we arrived at about five a.m., "Bode said." it feels like making a sitcom. It's too exaggerated. I've seen people shouting at each other. "

Anna Foster, the London based E.L.V. Denim brand founder, said she would try to work with retailers who could flexibly accept changes in her products.

"Ancient suppliers will not keep goods for me, nor will they give me receipts. Their working mechanism is not so," she said. "Retailers have begun to understand that if they want to do business that is conducive to sustainable development and recycling, they have to make some trade-offs in this regard."

E.L.V. logo straight jeans are made from two jeans that were originally sent to the landfill. A local studio will help them stitch. They sell products on Net-a-Porter, Selfridges and ShopBop, with a maximum price of 295 pounds ($410 contract). In September of this year, Le Bon March will also start selling E.L.V..

Designers say retailers and consumers are rapidly improving their acceptance of the concept.

"When we start using unsalable fabrics, we will not say this because it seems to kick us out of the ranks of luxury brands, making our products sound like a small workshop made by ourselves." Christopher Peters said, "now, everyone is using unsalable goods." In 2008, he and Shane Gabier founded the Creatures of the Wind brand in New York.

Bode 2020 spring summer series

With the expansion of business, designers who rely on slow-moving products must improve their raw material purchasing strategy.

Bode said she often went to textile trade fair, flea market and other activities. In those places, it is quite likely that she will stumbled upon a valuable ancient lace or unique quilt.

However, with the continuous development of brand, Bode has increased the types of raw material procurement channels. At present, dozens of retailers in 11 countries sell their brands. Earlier this month, she also held his first fashion show in Paris.

She has introduced her to the larger textile carriers in recent years. She will travel around the world to find new sources of goods (some of the fashions sold on her official website are used in West Africa and India to buy ancient fabrics) to buy high-end fabrics.

Eventually, designers will get rid of the initial practice of using unsalable goods, and only rely on ancient books to support a global brand. In addition to using the remaining fabric, Raeburn will also use recycled plastics to design and produce products locally by reducing waste. Bode now designs many kinds of fashions, including unique single products, small batch fashions made of unsalable products, and products that are commissioned by India and US partners to reproduce certain patterns and textiles.

At present, about 15% of Reformation's fashion products have been sold for sale, compared with 50% around five years ago.

Reformation's demand for raw materials has long exceeded the supply capacity of Losangeles's second-hand stores and flea markets. The brand was founded by Yael Aflalo in 2009, and its feminine Ins wind aesthetic style is very famous. Kathleen Talbot, vice president of operations and sustainable development at Reformation, said that about 15% of the brands were used for unsalable fabrics, while 2% of the fashions were transformed from old fashions, compared with 50% around five years ago.

Companies occasionally buy large quantities of fabrics, such as the thousands of denim they bought from a failed brand. However, most of the stocks of unsalable goods are usually only enough to provide hundreds of yards of fabric, and probably make 50 long skirts. Reformation may do something in every size, but if a style is very popular, they will not be able to produce more.

As Reformation begins to make more use of new fabrics for fashion, the brand is also looking for other fashions for sustainable development, such as banning the use of harmful chemicals, planting trees and reducing water consumption. Unsalable goods and old fashions are mainly used for making holidays and fashionable fashions, which are not even a limited number of products.

Talbot said, "there are only so many gorgeous skirts you want to make."

Reformation such a large brand must acquire the scale of industrial production. Over the years, with the growth of sales volume, Aflalo and its team began to purchase fabric factories and many small factories with redundant textiles in Losangeles. Today, they are in contact with factories around the world asking if they have any interesting fabrics left in the past production.

It is rare for factories to sell unsalable products to designers, especially in developing countries such as Turkey and India. Therefore, the brand will undertake some additional examination when purchasing. If a factory owner claims to have a batch of aging fabrics, Reformation's purchasing team will ask for a receipt to show the fabric purchase time, and ask the supplier to sign a checklist of the five products.

If a factory voluntarily provides some extra fabrics, Reformation purchasing team often raises a trap question: if they need more fabric, can the other side continue to provide it? If the answer is yes, even if there are signs that the factory will become a good partner to provide traditional fabrics, the factory may also be canceled supplier qualification.

The use of salable products to produce unique fashion brands is likely to be at risk of failure in the procurement process. "There will be ups and downs in the cost," Bode said. "There will always be a season when I will find towels everywhere in 1960s, and there will always be a season when there are no towels on the market."

However, market research and good relationship with suppliers will help reduce these risks. Raeburn said: "the good news is that after years of development, we have now established some very good relations."

"Sometimes, on the contrary, we do not need to search for purchases, nor do we go to warehouses. We will receive samples. It's really exciting and makes things more interesting. Sometimes we will encounter some wonderful surprises that will help us stay creative. "