Cool Brand Alert: Verloop Creates Colorful Knits Using Dead Stock Yarn

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Shop Small is a monthly series highlighting small business owners from diverse backgrounds. This series aims to go deeper than your typical product roundup, diving into the inspirational stories behind some of our favorite brands. By taking a behind-the-scenes look at how their shops came to be and highlighting the products they (and their shoppers!) love, we hope to put a deserving spotlight on these marginalized business owners.

Instead of sending excess yarn to landfills, Ella Lim challenged herself to create something unique. The result was Verloop, a growing knitwear brand that sells everything from colorful slippers, scarves and bags to pillows, throw blankets and holiday decor.

Design and production all happen at a family-owned knitting factory in the Philippines, which her grandfather started in the ’80s and her mother later took over. Familiarizing herself with the business from a young age, Lim shadowed her mother in high school and often considered traveling to meet clients to be "family vacations."

As an adult, she spent time away from the Philippines and her family, studying undergrad in the U.S. and later working in corporate. When the opportunity arose to return to Asia and work with her mom, Lim jumped at it. Below, we speak with Lim, who shares the success of her business and how she uses yarn that would otherwise be thrown away.

How did the idea for Verloop come to be?

It really struck me, being new to the business, how much waste there was during the production process. Everything from sampling and buying yarn to the back-and-forth designing creates all of this excess waste. One of the first things I remember when I joined the company, was finding the warehouse full of colorful offcuts from years of production. (Bless my mom, she never wants to throw anything away). I found several seasons of colors and styles, which inspired me to try and make a small collection using only the offcuts. Verloop's first collection in 2012 was made from 100 percent dead stock — we just saw what was available and put it all together.

What happened once you worked through the stockpile of offcuts?

The first few seasons were made entirely from dead stock, but we still incorporate dead stock. Because the company's grown quite a bit, we do have to work in virgin material into our designs, but the starting point every year is always what's left from the year prior in the factory. It's always sort of a puzzle every season.

What are your best-selling products?

In terms of volume, our number one item is a line of hats, called simple rib knit beanies. The great thing about this hat is that it’s very light, comfortable and stretches to fit any head. Our sock slippers and gloves do well, and this year, we launched fleece-lined knit socks that don’t sag. In 2018, we started experimenting with home items — think pillows, throw blankets, plant sleeves and coasters. One item that made a name for us are the "pair and spare" gloves, which is a set of three interchangeable, mismatched gloves. The idea is that if you lose one, you still have a pair.

Simple Rib Knit Beanie

Rib Planter Sleeve Set

Kaleidoscope Knit House Socks

Colorblock Knit Slippers

Checkerboard Coaster Set

Pair and Spare Knit Touchscreen Gloves

What’s unique about your production process?

Most brands' experience would be a designer working in the city, coming up with a tech pack and sending that to the factory asking, "please produce this in the most efficient way." For us, there's more of a dialogue between the creative and industrial process. I spend a couple weeks in the year at the factory coming up with product ideas. We’re just one of the several clients of the factory, but no other client has access to what's left in the factory. We create most of our designs on the factory floor alongside factory workers and it allows us to make more unique products.

How would you describe your customer?

Our customer is a really fun-loving, creative, expressive person. They aren't afraid of color. The interesting thing about our brand is that it's not age specific. We have something for the art mom, Gen Zs who love street style and millennials who appreciate color. It really is more psychographic — how people think and how they like to express themselves.

What are three things you've learned as a business owner?

1. Know your customer. When I started off, I really didn't know who my customer was. I just wanted to make a cool, unique product. It took a while to know who our core customer should be.

2. Iteration and small experiments make a difference. I spent the first couple years sort of nudging and testing things, making tests that don't cost a lot for the business. Then, once you feel you know it’s good, that’s when you scale up.

3. Be really open to distribution. Be agnostic where the product can be found and be open to different platforms — wholesale, e-commerce, etc. — especially for small brands without a lot of money.

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