Fabric Stories: Why Bestsellers Don’t Always Make a Business

Meet FARAH - the gem of the AW24 collection. A luxurious and very expensive silk velvet.

Every UNDRESS dress has its own story. What’s FARAH’s?

- “What does your mom do, Adrija?”
- “She makes dresses.”

Sometimes I imagine a dialogue between girls of my daughter’s age. “Oh, a dressmaker! She sits with a crown at a mahogany table, her legs elongated by high heels crossed, sketching the silhouette of a new dress with a pencil-sharp graphite in her notebook. Servants and butlers carry fabric samples on golden trays. Bring in, take out. Bring in, take out. Until the queen points her finger and says: this one!”

2015. The queen - with a crown - sits in her brother’s car. Driving to Poland, because back then there were maybe two fabric stores in Lithuania - and both very expensive. We came back with five rolls of beautiful fabrics. To be precise, beautiful leftover fabrics from Italy, from which we made the first collection.

2018. The queen - still crowned - on a plane. She’s flying to Paris. Première Vision Paris - a high-end fabric fair, a hangar the size of Vilnius Old Town, packed to the brim with the most stunning fabrics, threads, accessories, trends, technologies, luxury, manufacturers, suppliers, resellers, the most famous fashion houses in the world, and small brands like mine.

I felt like a three-year-old taken to Disneyland for the first time. A Turkish fabric manufacturer looked down at me and asked:
– “What is your shipping account?”
– “What?”

Or:
– “I’d like 50 meters of this one.”
– “500 is the minimum, ma’am.”

Thousands of beautiful fabrics. Simply perfect. But as many dresses as could be made from 500 meters of the most beautiful fabrics I’ve ever seen - I couldn’t sell them in one season, or two, or maybe ever. Elsewhere, they tell me I can buy not three but a hundred meters - but of course, with a beastly markup.

My queen blinks. The crown starts to slip. I lift it and draw a line: I can’t afford these.

That time I felt completely drained. Exhausted from running between what I wanted and what I could afford. Première Vision Paris blew my mind.

2020. Queens - especially those in high heels - are queens because they know how to spin on their heels, pin their slipping crowns back on, and start again. I learned not to wander everywhere, but to go straight where I can breathe. I learned to ask Turks, Japanese, Chinese, Italians the right questions (“Maybe you’ll be producing a larger batch of this fabric soon, and could include our hundred meters?”) - and not just once. I discovered Prato - a historic textile town in Italy - with its silk velvet and deadstock treasures. I discovered how much patience I have for treasure hunting myself, and how sweet it feels not to lose the quality lottery - because sometimes you bring it home, unroll it, and find a flaw you paid dearly for.

Deadstock means leftover fabrics from famous fashion houses, factories, or supplier warehouses. Often these are highly refined, premium-quality original works from collections that were canceled for some reason; or surplus from completed collections; sometimes luxurious collectible vintage. These are the pearls, rubies, and diamonds of the fabric world - sometimes the seller has 30 meters, sometimes just one roll (about 7 meters).

FARAH is one of three dresses we made for the SS24 collection - carefully using just 5 meters and 90 centimeters of the most stunning deadstock silk velvet. 
Price per meter: “only” €65…
A complete bestseller, a true goldmine for business.
Only - three dresses don’t make a business.

And so we sew.
Like Queens, for Queens!