At the start of Covid, fabric provider STI invested over $5 million in outdoor finishing capacities to improve its bottleneck when the supply chain took a turn. And that has led to a domestic stocking program where the company currently stocks over 250 outdoor fabric SKUs that ship in less than 72 hours from the order date.
Delivering to casual partners like Lloyd Flanders, Polywood, Leaders Casual and Summer Classics, outdoor now makes up 30% of the total product STI produces. And that’s compared with just 5% about five years ago.
The company’s performance story centers around solution-dyed polypropylene fabrics, and with them being able to deliver on time, STI Chief Marketing Officer Anderson Gibbons says the outdoor consumer is getting textures and designs that they haven’t had access to based on issues with the acrylic supply chain.
“We believe the acrylic guys can do things that we can’t do, and that we can do things the acrylic guys can’t,” he says. “And I think ultimately, there’s a space for everybody. The end consumer is going to win because they’re going to have more designs and more preferences in their casual living environment that they just haven’t had before.”
In terms of the company’s stocking program, Gibbons says sales are up nearly 200%.
“Whenever I think I hit the right stocking number, it goes above and beyond,” he explains. “It has been a rush to get the right stocking levels. But we can handle it because invested in domestic manufacturing.”
As the company started in the train, plane, and automobile industries, Gibbons says STI has taken that engineering mindset to the outdoor industry where they’ve had success with solution-dyed polypropylene—a true outdoor fiber that’s made in the U.S. and tested to withstand 3,000 hours lightfastness.
“We see outdoor fabrics as a choice between two fibers—and that’s solution-dyed acrylic and solution-dyed polypropylene,” Gibbons says. “All of our polypropylene is made within 300 miles of our plant, and we’ve become popular in the outdoor industry as an alternative to acrylic.”
Gibbons credits some of the success to the market. Before the pandemic, it often seemed like there was only one option for fabric. But with what’s happened in the global supply chain, Gibbons says people were looking for something else to meet demand.
“I don’t know if Pandora goes back in the box,” he says. “These same people who said our fabrics are great but they only have one source, many of these people are now open to developing a relationship.”
In the near future, the company is also coming out with two new design-focused collections. The first, Design Oasis, is an homage to the last High Point Market where the company participated in the outdoor design oasis area in between IHFC and Showplace with designer Stacy Garcia and Cheryl Luckett. Luckett’s designs are now part of a complete book of fabrics she is partnering with STI on.
The company will also soon introduce its Coastal collection, which will all be booked and stocked, offers custom design capabilities, and is preparing to show at Interwoven at the end of May.
“We’re a family-owned company—started by my mom and her two sisters—and we see we see a bright future for STI in the outdoor space. We currently go through about 500,000 yards a week.”
