Nona Source

Source: Nona Source

CottonEuropeLeatherSilkTextilesWool

5 MINUTE READ

Nate Tyler

WHAT WE SAY:

Deadstock fabric has become en vogue for fashion brands wanting to flex their sustainability credentials. But sourcing those fabrics adds transportation emissions, as well as time and money, to the production process. Nona Source solves this problem with its online resale platform for deadstock materials.

The company has invested considerable resources in order to provide insights on everything that can be known about a fabric without physically holding it, and ensures that what's made is being used. While some critics argue that selling deadstock encourages brands to over-source, Nona Source’s limited availabilities show this isn’t just another revenue stream for fast fashion.

KEY FACTS:

Nona Source is an online resale platform which sources deadstock fabrics from LVMH brands.
The platform is aimed at designers and sourcing professionals, who can search through a wide array of materials that would otherwise go to waste. Buyers can filter by colour, composition, price per metre, weight, availability by metre, pattern, property, wear, and use.
All available fabrics are high-end materials from LVMH, including Leather, Silk, cashmere, Wool, and synthetics such as polyester and elastane. Patterns include herringbone, twill, houndstooth, lustre, and washed. Wear and use subcategories include evening wear, work wear, suiting, and casual wear.
To overcome the fact that buyers can't physically touch the materials before purchase, Nona Source has invested in high-quality photography and video, partnering with material experts to show accurate colours, textures, and composition online.
Each fabric is shot on a wooden mannequin to show tone, transparency, and drape, while close-up videos show the fabrics being handled, folded, stretched, and scrunched, to give as much insight into their look and feel as possible. Samples of the fabrics are available on request.
Nona Source co-founder Romain Brabo states that the platform sells "materials at approximately a third of the usual price".
The platform has opened two physical showrooms for its deadstock supplies so far: one in Paris at La Caserne, and one in London at The Mills Fabrica. Future showroom locations include the US and Asia.
Nona Source currently restricts delivery to Europe and the UK, limiting transport emissions from its warehouse in France.
The platform was started by Romain Brabo (fabric buyer, Givenchy), Marie Falguera (materials expert, Kenzo), and Anne Prieur du Perray (digital transformation manager, LVMH) as part of LVMH’s intrapreneurial incubator program, DARE.
Nona Source launched in April 2021, and by July of that year had received over 1,000 fabrics from LVMH brands. Brabo said that in the first year Nona Source had 300 customers, with 90% being young designers. By May of 2022, the platform had more than 600 customers.

The Paris showroom / Source: Nona Source

Sample fabric can be ordered from Nona Source's website / Source: Nona Source

DIVE DEEPER:

Deadstock fabric is the leftovers of a clothing run. It could be remnants of what was used, or the fabric may have been over-sourced. Estimates put the total value of deadstock fabric sitting in warehouses worldwide at USD 120 billion, but the figure is likely far higher.
By making use of what already exists, using deadstock helps to reduce the manufacturing of new materials, in turn reducing resource use and production impact. It also saves surplus materials being disposed of through incineration. In 2017, for example, Burberry made headlines by lighting GBP 28.6 million (USD 36.69 million) worth of unsold clothing on fire. It’s estimated that 92 million tons of fabric, whether made into clothing or not, becomes waste every year.
Dedicated to re-valorising end-of-line materials, Nona Source's luxury sourcing model helps ensure a keen, regular customer base who're both looking to reduce their impact and enticed by the prospect of luxury materials at affordable price points.
The company continues to diversify, partnering with Weturn, a French circular solution platform that works with brands to turn their deadstock fabrics and garments into new, recycled materials. Designers can now buy an array of Weturn's MT fabrics on Nona Source, complete with the MT Tag and QR code, which allow consumers to receive full, transparent access to the material's lifecycle.
The deadstock system is not without its critics, however. There are concerns that encouraging the trade in deadstock fabric could incentivise brands to continue to over-source materials, safe in the knowledge that they can sell anything that goes unused.
Nona Source works consistently with small designers looking for high-quality fabric at a fraction of the cost, but it has partnered with brands, too, including Patagonia, Levi’s, and Nike.
In Autumn of 2022, Nona Source launched an ambassador program to support designers. The program's first ambassadors are Cecilie Bahnsen, Karoline Vitto, Nensi Dojaka, and Victor Weinsanto.

"Nona Source allows creatives to easily access high-quality materials whilst encouraging the creative re-use of existing resources."

Nona Source

Key Design Considerations:

Make it feel new

People seek out the new for the thrill of something different, but it’s abundantly clear we have plenty of materials in existence already. To make deadstock feel like next season's must-have, designers should look beyond the season it stemmed from and experiment with new product activations and new category activations - perhaps translating a material from menswear into womenswear, activewear into evening wear, and so on. The task is finding ways to make what we already have feel fresh for both the designer and the consumer.

Use up synthetics, but don't buy new

It's important we keep everything in circulation for as long as possible, and that includes the plastic-based, synthetic fabrics that are already sitting in warehouses waiting to be put to use. While it's far better for these materials to be used than destroyed, designers should treat deadstock synthetics as a finite resource by committing to never buying new ones again. With this mindset, we can wean ourselves off plastic fibres for good, and return to the natural fibres that have served us so well.