How Source Fashion Built a ’Safe Space for Buyers’

Jasmin Malik Chua
·6 min read

When Hyve Group, one of the world’s largest trade show organizers, asked fashion buyers if they would attend an event that connected them to hundreds of responsible textile, garment, trim, accessory and packaging manufacturers, they all said yes. But many also laughed.

“Because how do you then find these people? How do you make sure that they’re responsible businesses?” said Suzanne Ellingham, sourcing director at Source Fashion. “When you’re looking at the big producing countries—China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan—they’re not easily accessible when you live in the U.K.”

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In the end, Hyve Group, which also organizes the Pure London, Moda and Scoop shows, had, if not the last guffaw, then at least a good chortle. On a day in February, holding court in a corner of Olympia London, a sprawling event space and conference hall just off Kensington High Street, Ellingham is fielding her final media appointment as Source Fashion’s third iteration in two years comes to a close. In a few hours, exhibitors from 25 destinations, including Egypt, Nepal, Spain, Turkey, Ethiopia, Madagascar—and yes, China, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan—would be awhirl with activity, collapsing tables, dismantling fixtures and filling massive suitcases with the wares they had spent three days touting. Ellingham is both tired and wired. In July—a mere five months away—she’ll be doing this all over again.

Source Fashion grew from a single question: Why didn’t it work? “It” being Pure Origin, Hyve Group’s original foray into the upper streams of the fashion supply chain. But brands and retailers didn’t need more noise. What they were hungry for was a more targeted approach, one that didn’t require jetting off packs of executives to dozens of far-flung locales or swiping left on innumerable would-be collaborators before landing on the right match. If the suppliers were pre-vetted for reliability and ethics, complete with up-to-date certifications that have become table stakes for responsible and compliant businesses, all the better.

“The U.K. isn’t known for having manufacturing shows where we bring in international suppliers,” Ellingham said. “It’s important to have a safe space for buyers.”

For buyers with even less time for discovery, Source Fashion offers a concierge service. Just tell it what specs are non-negotiable—say, children’s onesies dyed with azo-free dyes or recycled cashmere from Italy—and a buyer relationship manager will offer tailored recommendations.

“The big buyers, [they can] pick up a phone with someone on our team and say, ‘This is what I’m looking for,’ and we’ll say, ‘O.K., we only have three people who do that but it’s absolutely worth it to see those three people,’” she said. “And they will because to find a factory in a particular country that has a specific kind of capability can take six to eight months on an engagement visit.”

Sustainability has a tendency to be siloed, particularly at trade shows, Ellingham said. At Source Fashion, there’s no “conscious” section or “green” pavilion. Every manufacturer there has been through at least one audit from a recognizable international body in the past 12 months, though it recommends Sedex or BSCI because they’re what U.K. and other European buyers look for. Removing barriers to business makes it that much easier to get down to it. Plus, it simplifies Source Fashion’s value proposition.

“We just are a responsible manufacturing show, and that’s it,” she said. “When we do our checks, we make sure that businesses on our show floor are credible, responsible and ethical. And that’s just our show. You can walk around and see certifications. You’ll see people using recycled materials. You’ll see cooperatives from around the world where it makes a huge difference for them to be here.”

Ellingham describes Source Fashion as less of a “curation” and more of “making sure everyone’s on track.” The only place trends reared their heads was the daily catwalk, which trotted out looks broadly based on spring/summer 2025 prognostications: swishy fabrics, 3D knits, funkadelic colors, beachwear galore. Otherwise, declaring whether something is in or out is anathema to what it’s trying to accomplish.

“When you’re in the world of responsible or sustainable fashion in any way, shape or form, trends and microtrends that come and go are not sustainable,” Ellingham said. “Our buyers, they buy 12 to 18 months in advance; they’re looking at range creation…across multiple categories. It’s really not for these manufacturers to come up with the trends. It’s for them to bring those ranges to life that the designers and the buyers want to see.”

Education has also been baked into the schedule. Each day featured a slate of “seminars,” from a primer on how to source in new regions in Africa to how to solve the landfill crisis to the selling power of retail transparency. When Ellingham realized that 70-75 percent of U.K. buyers she spoke to were unaware of Britain’s developing countries trading scheme, which cuts tariffs for 65 developing nations, she threw in a session that clued them in. Speakers included designer Patrick McDowell, “fashion futurist” Geraldine Wharry and former Asos responsible sourcing chief Simon Platt.

New to this season is Source Luxury, a selection of exhibitors who specialize in high-quality garments and trims.

“These are people who do much lower minimum order quantities at higher prices,” Ellingham said. “One thing we realized when we were coming to the shows is we had people like Burberry, Chanel and Lulu Guinness all on our list. These are not companies that are looking for bargain basement models. They are looking for people who make things in a good way, who give them the finished quality they want.”

Ellingham has picked up ways to improve the show that she’s raring to incorporate in the next version. Some of it is boring, she said, like website taxonomy that provides more visibility into a factory’s capabilities. But others can better signpost what buyers are drawn to, such as the origins and contents of the materials. Most of all, she wants to help producers, especially those from communities that live on the margins, tell their own stories.

“There are those who will drive people to the bottom of prices,” she said. “But I think what we’re seeing is a much more responsible group of [buyers] who want to make sure that the people making those products are paid fair wages and they understand the costs of super-low prices.”