Deadstock: What is it and How Do Brands Make Use of it?

With the entire fashion industry moving closer towards sustainability, the question that no brand can avoid is “What are you doing to lower your impact?” A potential answer could be utilizing deadstock fabrics. Making use of this fabric is a popular choice for fashion brands who want to make their production more sustainable. Deadstock refers to leftover scraps of fabric from the collections of fashion brands. Conventionally, deadstock scraps are considered to be useless, merely taking up space in warehouses. Deadstock also refers to any unsold items. It can be detrimental to any business as it takes up space and acts as a bad investment for the brand. However when managed correctly, deadstock offers an excellent opportunity for brands to strive for eco-friendly fashion. How Does Deadstock Accumulate? For starters, deadstock can accumulate when brands have ordering inconsistencies. This refers to ordering too many items at once or at the wrong time. Using calculating tools like Reorder Point, Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), and Inventory Turnover Ratio can help brands to more efficiently schedule and order items from their vendors. Another point to consider is poor sales. This can happen when a brand’s target market doesn’t like a product because of its price, out of trend style or that they find the competition’s product more appealing. In this case, high discounts are the best way to of dealing with deadstock in the form of stock clearance or summer sales. Fashion Brands that Are Getting Creative with Deadstock Meet some well-established fashion brands that are bringing us guilt-free garments while making efficient use of their leftover fabrics: Panero Producing ethically made apparel in Los Angeles and Indonesia, Panero’s mission is to create high-quality and one-of-a-kind pieces that will last a lifetime in their customers’ closets. Operating via a circular business model, the brand sources deadstock fabrics made from eco-friendly fibers. Panero focuses on designing clothes that can be worn each season, over and over again. The brand uses natural deadstock materials such as cotton and linen, as well as semi-synthetics like Tencel and Rayon. Tonlé Believing that every scrap of fabric has a purpose, Tonlé sources pre-consumer deadstock waste large garment factories in Phnom Penh in Cambodia. This zero-waste fashion company designs its apparel based around deadstock fabrics, ensuing the manufacturing process produces zero waste. The team turns any leftover scraps into yarn, which is woven into extra fabric. In addition, they make any additional textile waste from this process into recycled handmade paper. Now that is creative! The brand offers everything from t-shirts, pants, scarves, dresses, and jumpsuits, as well as offering plus size and gender-inclusive lines. Zero Waste Daniel True to its name, Zero Waste Daniel is a Brooklyn-based brand honing in on fabric upcycling. The brand is renowned for its handmade clothing made by sewing small design room fabric scraps that would otherwise be burnt or sent to landfills. Designer and creator of the brand Daniel Silverstein creates a unique patchwork fabric known as “reroll”, which he uses to make t-shirts, sweatpants, sweatshirts, and more. All of the garments are made in a closed-loop circular process where nothing goes to waste. The Benefits of Deadstock Smaller clothing brands that opt for deadstock fabrics get them for a huge discount. Eco-conscious designers can use these leftovers as recycled fabrics, including polyester recycled into new poly, instead of creating new polyester, or recycled cotton and linen. Leftover fabrics are easily accessible as there’s just so much of it. Textile mills and factories usually have many rolls of leftover fabric. The fabric was either dyed the wrong color, left after a production run, or was ordered in surplus. Brands that make use of deadstock fabric are helping to minimize textile waste that ends up in landfills, and ultimately lessen the burden of the fashion industry’s impact on the environment.