The current situation around the topics of resource scarcity, price volatility and overproduction has been on our minds for a long time. Especially when you ask yourself questions about the need for ever new productions on the one hand and the increase of prices on the other hand, the responsibility to act arises for us. As you know, many things have changed on the global cotton market, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, and these developments are also forcing us to adjust the prices for our cotton fabrics.
For us, of course, this also brings with it the concern that at some point in time, premium organic cotton will only be affordable for people with the right amount of money – a development that we certainly do not want to see. Good fabrics must have a reasonable price, but they must not become too expensive. This is precisely why it is important for us to expand our price portfolio and make counter-offers to products that are becoming more expensive. At the same time, we are aware of another issue that ties in well with our thoughts on price development: Our producers also make things that accumulate as deadstock outside of the collections and are not even put on sale in the first place.
Our sourcing team already consulted on this last year and approached our Portuguese producers, with whom we have been working for a long time and reliably, to ask them about deadstock fabrics. The result: Yes, there are fabrics that have not been accepted. Sometimes the reason for this is a color deviation, but very often it is a matter of materials that our producers have knitted or woven for trade fairs and for which there is initially no use – something that we urgently wanted to change.
This has several advantages for us and for you: On the one hand, we have known the production facilities, which are also GOTS-certified, for years and have had many positive experiences there. In addition, the launch of small deadstock collections far away from the two annual collections gives us the opportunity to offer new fabrics on a test basis – a small laboratory that gives us and you some freedom to get to know new materials. Our Deadstock fabrics are made to the same standards by our supplier, who – in addition to GOTS – is also Oeko-Tex and REACH certified. If you want a reproduction, because you like it so much and need more of it, we realize that for you in GOTS quality.
With the fabrics we have so far, we are moving in the fiber spectrum that you know from us. In addition to lyocell, there's also cotton and linen and we've always made sure to avoid fiber blends whenever possible – with the recyclability of fabrics in mind, this is something that's very important to us. As of December 2021, we have launched more than 20 new fabrics in cotton and/or linen. Many of them come in bright beautiful colors or with pretty cool patterns. In our Deadstock category, which will become its own subpage in good time, we will introduce you to more fabrics of this kind in the future – and as always, we welcome your feedback.
