Inside a Bangkok Factory: The Making of Deadstock

Walking through a textile factory in Bangkok is walking through the invisible half of fashion. Here's where every shirt, every dress, every piece of fabric for every garment brand starts. And here's where about 30% of it ends—as deadstock.

The order process

A brand orders 100,000 metres of cotton sateen. The factory produces 110,000 metres (the standard 10% overage for shrinkage and sample cuts). The brand receives 100,000. They sell 95,000. The remaining 15,000 metres of deadstock sits in the warehouse.

What happens next? Storage costs money. So does negotiating with other buyers. The factory's best option: incinerate it. Fast. Cost-efficient. Done.

The human cost

The workers in the factory don't see deadstock as waste. They see it as hours they've already worked, fabric they've already dyed, materials they've already handled. Watching it burn is watching labour disappear.

That's the hidden cost of deadstock: human effort, rendered worthless by logistics.

How Orangeba changes the math

We walk in and ask: instead of burning, can we buy it? The factory gets cash immediately. We get beautiful fabric at fair price. Deadstock gets a second life as dresses, shirts, pieces that people actually wear.

Everyone wins. The factory's workers see their labour preserved. The fabric gets used. The environment gets 96% less water waste than virgin production.