For over four decades, Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics has been importing silk from European designers in Italy through our longtime friends in New York. In the past, these jobbers would import designer leftovers, or deadstock, by the container full—and we would often get first pick. In the 1980s, we would fly in shipments from NY filled with silk, wool, and linen from top designers like Ellen Tracey. This continued until 2020, when the pandemic shut down the Italian fabric industry and devastated the NY jobbers and fabric trade. This combined with rising warehouse rents in NY was a big challenge, and many in the industry went out of business. The cost of getting a shipping container from Italy also skyrocketed by an unimaginable percentage. With the Italian factories shut down for safety reasons during the pandemic, the surplus of designer deadstock was sold out and our connection to their unique and well-priced wools, silks, and linens dried up.
