When we expanded Acid Moons into a textile-first approach in 2022, we were left with an alarming problem: India generates approximately 7.8 million tonnes of textile waste annually, making it the third-largest contributor to dry municipal solid waste. Only 34% of this waste is reused, while 25% is recycled, leaving huge volumes for landfills and incineration.
We were deadly sure we didn't want to be a part of the problem neither add to it, and we took the difficult route, one which made us question everything many times over.
Why does this happen? India is a global leader in textile exports, ranking among the top three worldwide with roughly a 3.9% share of global trade. But with that number, multiple other issues creep up to our country's issues overlapping like arteries in a human body.
bales of fabric at a surplus store in delhi
Overproduction is a fact that sits quietly behind the industry — in mills across Tamil Nadu, in surplus warehouses on the outskirts of Delhi, in export orders that get cancelled or overestimated. Cotton poplin woven for bulk manufacturing often runs in excess. Linen, still a smaller but growing segment in India, is frequently imported, processed, and then left behind in partial lots when orders shift or timelines collapse.
What doesn’t move forward rarely gets documented. Some of it is resold but most of it ends up in ever-increasing landfills dotted across the country. And some of it, perfectly usable, structurally sound, is written off simply because it no longer fits into a system built on scale and uniformity.
This is the material we work with. At Acid Moons, reclaimed linen and cotton poplin don’t arrive as a concept. They arrive as leftover inventory — overproduced yardage, cancelled export stock, end-of-line rolls that are too small for factories to continue with but too significant to ignore.
There is nothing romantic about how they come to us. Working with these materials means stepping into the gap, one of overproduction. Too much made at once, too quickly, for a demand that shifted somewhere along the way...
The linen already holds its dye, often developed for a palette we had no part in choosing. The poplin is precise in construction but limited in quantity, which means every decision — from pattern to cut — is made with an awareness that there is no replacement roll waiting behind it.
In larger systems, inconsistency is a problem. Here, it becomes part of the process. A slight variation in weave density, a shift in tone across batches, a finish that behaves differently after the first wash — these are things industrial production is designed to eliminate. But when you’re working with reclaimed material, they stay. Not as features, not as flaws, just as realities of what already exists.
Let us differentiate first, we work with deadstock fabric, and it is often confused and used sparingly or interchangeably in the industry so let's clarify that first.
Reclaimed fabric: Fabric that has already existed within the production cycle — sourced from surplus, deadstock, or discarded material — and used again instead of producing new textile.
Deadstock fabric: Unused fabric left over from mills, factories, or fashion houses due to overproduction, cancelled orders, or excess inventory. It is new, but no longer part of the original production plan.
Vintage: Clothing or textiles from a previous era, typically at least 20 years old, valued for their age, character, and cultural context.
Thrifted: Second-hand clothing that has been previously owned and is resold, usually through thrift stores, markets, or informal channels.
India’s textile ecosystem has always held both extremes — deeply local, small-scale craft traditions alongside some of the largest manufacturing capacities in the world. What sits between them is less visible: surplus, deadstock, excess that doesn’t quite belong to either space.
Using it doesn’t solve overproduction. It doesn’t reverse the scale at which things are made. But it does shift the starting point. Instead of producing new fabric to meet an idea, the idea begins with what is already there. That shift is small, but it changes the outcome. It limits how much can be made. It resists repetition. It asks for decisions to be made with the material, not in isolation from it.
And it keeps something in circulation that would have otherwise been absorbed back into a system that rarely accounts for what it leaves behind. What you wear, then, isn’t just linen or cotton poplin. It’s material that moved through India’s production cycle and paused. Material that was almost excess, almost forgotten, before it found another use, and we hope you find many uses from it too.
We get the most perfect win-win situation where you get a custom piece from Acid Moons which is handmade at our studio in Delhi-NCR & we have a small run of each piece, sometimes only 3-4 pieces in each piece.
As of 2026, we are committed to also supporting artisan families producing limited-batch garments using textiles that need to be carried to future generations that are hand-spun, handwoven and made with love from the maker at every stage while evolving craft into something that the new India will be proud to wear.