Welcome to the private beta launch of Source4Style.com! We’ve been in stealth mode development for the past eight months, refining our mission, our methodology, our marketing and our site design. Thanks to a number of our friends in the apparel industry, we feel we’ve come up with an amazing platform for designers and retail sourcing specialists to not only learn about sustainable design but also to be able to search, compare and purchase the best environmentally- and socially-conscious materials from a network of global suppliers.

Our mission is to make sustainable design possible by creating the world’s most innovative online marketing platform for designers and suppliers to showcase, connect and transact.

We aim to meet our mission by offering you the finest selection of materials in our online marketplace; providing guidance on a material’s environmental and social offerings; building a trusted and engaged community; and  diving into cutting-edge information from the frontline of sustainable design in our blog, S4.

How Source4Style works:

When you are invited onto our platform, we suggest you register (it’s free!) so that you are one step closer to sourcing the best material for your collection.

Once you are registered, you simply can browse or search through a comprehensive and curated selection of materials. You can do so by scrolling through featured textile images on our homepage; searching by material category (e.g., silk, cotton, rayon); typing in descriptive search terms (e.g., India, silk blend, red); or by performing an advanced search.

We want to make finding materials as easy as possible for you. Each material you see on a product page is available for purchase, provided it is in stock. If it is in stock, you can do three things: “Add to Swatchbook” (read: your wishlist); “Get a Swatch” (read: have a swatch mailed to your home or office); and “Buy Now” (read: purchase yardage and have it mailed to your home or office). Our purpose is to make both your sourcing and your transaction as seamless as possible.

Product page functionality: Add to Swatchbook, Get a Swatch, and Buy Now

Viewing materials:

Buying textiles is a visual and tactile experience. We seek to revolutionize material buying online by giving you the best sensory experience at your fingertips. Our materials are photographed at high resolution (300 dpi) with a 100 mm macro-lens with “extreme zoom” capabilities so you can skim over the topography of a fabric and get a clear sense of texture, weight, weave and touch.

Because of our microscopic zoom, pattern and weave will often appear larger and color may vary due to lighting and individual computer color management settings. We will continue to advance the accuracy in material color and pattern size, but in the meantime we always suggest purchasing a sample swatch through the “Get a Swatch” button prior to buying yardage to get the most accurate visual representation of a material.

screenshot of a material product page

screenshot of “extreme zoom” capabilities on material product page

We’ll be in private beta for the next few months, which means we’ll be slowly inviting designers onto the site so be sure to register here if you are interested. For further information and to become more familiar with Source4Style.com, please visit our Guide/FAQs, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy.

We hope you are as excited as we are for Source4Style.com and  you’ll join the community to make sustainable design possible for everyone.

Tell us what you think in the meantime. We look forward to hearing from you. Happy Sourcing!

- The Source4Style Team, Summer Rayne, Benita, and Adam