Roll call

Nona Source gives a new lease of life to LVMH’s high-end deadstock fabrics

- LAURA HAWKINS

An ecological cave of wonder sits in Tours, the capital of France’s Loire Valley, southwest of Paris. Its shelves are stacked with roll upon roll of exquisite fabrics: cloudy cloque in a delectable peach, a gauzy seersucker with vivid jacquard flowers, an undulating floral lace, a wool and silk Prince of Wales check in bold blues and reds. These bolts and bundles are all deadstock materials supplied by a single haute couture maison. They aren’t destined to gather dust or mildew, as often happens with forgotten fabrics from a single clothing season. Instead, they are available as second-life materials to major and emerging clothing brands who are keen to use a circular economy model.

Welcome to the warehouse of Nona Source, a new sustainability-focused digital platform that resells second-life fabrics at competitive prices. Launched in April 2021, it was incubated by LVMH’s entrepreneurial innovation programme DARE.