What is deadstock?
Hi my name is Irina and I'm Erin and we are at the Fabcycle textile waste reuse center
in Vancouver. We are honored to be invited by Seamwork to talk to you about deadstock and
show you what deadstock is, where can you shop for it and why is it so awesome. Before we really get
into it though I'd like to acknowledge that we are on the unseated territories of the Musqueam,
Squamish, andTsleil-Waututh nations. So what is deadstock? Where is it coming from? Why is it called
deadstock? So everything we see here around us at the Fabcycle textile waste reuse center is actually
deadstock. So we collect materials from fashion designers, film industries, schools, private people,
and we make sure that textile waste doesn't go in the landfill by making sure the usable materials
are preserved and passed on to other makers. So that's what can be created in various ways.
Sometimes a mill can produce fabric and they over produce things and so they have excess fabric that
they're just not able to sell. So there's deadstock and deadstock means that they just don't
have a customer that order this material so they end up with this excess fabric they just have to
figure out what to do. So some mills do you sell it, some mills are just stuck with it for years,
years in the storage. Same thing happens sometimes with fashion designers so the stuff you get here
for example, the rolls, oten the way we get it is by fashion designers ordering fabric and then
for whatever reason they're not able to use the fabric, maybe some there's like a small defect on
the color, the tone is not right, maybe they just like got to the end of the roll and they got to
the minimum quantity of items that the factory will produce so they just end up with like let's
say 20 different rolls and the roles of fabric but because they're in a business of scaling
and doing things in more mass production they're not able to use the small end of bits materials.
But for us this is a treasure, we love end of rolls because we love passing forward to makers
that appreciate the materials for what they are, which is beautiful fabric that we love.
Another way that some of our private donations come to us is from estate donations. So someone
has passed away and they have a large storage of materials whoever is dealing with their affairs
doesn't necessarily know where to give it and we're definitely one of those great places that
you can give those kinds of materials so they do get the love that they deserve and move into the
hands of people who will make something out of them. We get a lot of really beautiful vintage
materials from estate donations and things like that that you'll see on the website and you'll see
if you come in person to our Fabcycle reuse center. Yes and that actually leads us to the
point of like why we love textiles waste and why, well we don't love textile waste, we love deadstock but we
love getting our hands on stuff that people don't know what to do with because we know where who can
get it and that's you our makers. So where's places that you can buy deadstock Irena? Good question
Erin. So if you are local to Vancouver come visit our Fabcycle resuse center in Vancouver, however
you can actually find really great materials everywhere around you. The first place to start
with is in your own stash. As makers we have a lot of stash, usually that we accumulate over time
but maybe your friends and family have the same thing so first step I would recommend is seeing
who's around you and using the stuff you already own. If you can do that you can always trade or
play around with unusual even materials that you have that's first step. However, there's a lot
more places where you can actually source usable materials like thrift stores are a great option.
I find when I go thrifting one of the biggest sections I go into is home decor and that's where
you're going to find a lot of materials that are deadstock sometimes on the roll still. Sometimes
you'll have bundles of fabric at thrift stores they usually have a section set aside for it so
that is one of the first places I will go to is a thrift store. Yes another source you can go for
is online. So you can go to Facebook marketplace there's a lot of Facebook groups and destash
groups so the keywords to look for things it's like "destash" um and "deadstock" fabrics and you'll
see an area of materials based on where you live that you can either source online or
in person, depends on the community organization. Speaking of community organizations there are a
lot of community organizations around the world that you can check out your local community
and see if there are legions and community thrift stores there's all kinds of places, for-profit and
non-for-profit that will have deadstock materials for you to be able to use. Yes and another way too
for differentiation also some organizations do curate deadstock materials that means they'll
go and purchase uh deadstock materials which is nothing wrong with that this just means that they
provide materials that are really more interesting and more curated to their style of their store
there's some organizations like us for example where we don't curate we just accept everything.
Everything. Everything! With that differentiation and we make sure that everything also moves
forward to other makers so really nothing gets wasted completely so whatever you choose curated
or uncurated. Yes deadstock thrift store destash, whatever it is uh we make sure that whatever you
decide to purchase you have a plan for it and you will make sure that something beautiful and
usable going to come out of it so it doesn't come back to be a deadstock again or textile waste. So
if you'd like to learn more about deadstock come see us in person at our Fabcycle textile reuse
center here in Vancouver in Chinatown or you can go to our website Fabcycle.shop and see
what's out there. Contact us, we always love talking about sustainability, textile waste, and deadstock
and learn from each other and support one another as part of being in the community.
So thank you for your time. Thank you so much and thank you Seamwork.