Our MATERIALS
Fabrics you want to keep touching
Allow us to nerd out on the stories, origins, and makers behind our magnificent materials
The materials with which we fill our lives matter.
At NAOMI NOMI, we source our fabrics from mills that have been operating and innovating,
some for centuries, weaving and finishing spectacular fabrics that breath,
move and feel like the luxurious natural resources that they are.
We love cottons,
linens, silks, & wools;
the foundation of a biodiverse closet.
We revere the craftsmanship that goes into making our fabrics but we are not intimidated by it. After all, rules are meant to be broken. We are grateful to work with partners who are constantly innovating in our shared search for a less wasteful way to make clothing; i.e., a way to make things without destroying everything.
Read below for some of the stories, origins, & makers behind our magnificent materials.
Read below for some of the stories, origins, & makers behind our magnificent materials.
meet our
Merino Wool
The softest and strongest fabric on the block.From Sheep to Shirt
Made in the oldest operating textile mill in Germany, our merino wool is built to last and keep you warm. Strong and soft, it's just as comfortable traipsing through a January off-site as it is braving July's office AC. It is extremely breathable and adjusts to changes in your body temperature throughout the day.
Naturally wrinkle resistant, merino wool absorbs the odor from your sweat and releases it only when washed. That means it doesn't need to be washed after every wear. That's great news because the majority of a garment's impact on our environment comes, surprisingly, not from its production, but from its time spent in a washing machine and dryer.
Naturally wrinkle resistant, merino wool absorbs the odor from your sweat and releases it only when washed. That means it doesn't need to be washed after every wear. That's great news because the majority of a garment's impact on our environment comes, surprisingly, not from its production, but from its time spent in a washing machine and dryer.
Who We Work With
The sheep we work with live in New Zealand and Australia. Naturally renewable and biodegradable, merino wool is made from fibers grown by (on) living, breathing merino sheep. On average, one sheep produces up to 4-5lbs of wool per year which dissolves after about 12 months in the ground. Curious about mulesing? (the practice of removing skin from a sheep’s butt) Our suppliers don’t do it. (We love the butts of all species equally and support healthy butt practices throughout our entire supply chain and customer experience.)
Post haircut, our wool is spun into yarn and then woven into cloth at our partner mill in Bavaria, Germany. In the biz for over 350 years, this mill is the oldest cloth manufacturer in Germany, and incidentally the 29th oldest industrial enterprise of any kind in Germany. The Mill has been family-owned for 10 generations.
Every season, we work directly with their team to dye our new hues. After the wool is dyed, it's spun into yarn and wound onto gigantic spools. Then, the Germans weave. Once finished, the gorgeous fabric is sent to New York to be cut and sewn into the perfect NAOMI NOMI New Oxford just for you. Strong, soft, and timeless.
Post haircut, our wool is spun into yarn and then woven into cloth at our partner mill in Bavaria, Germany. In the biz for over 350 years, this mill is the oldest cloth manufacturer in Germany, and incidentally the 29th oldest industrial enterprise of any kind in Germany. The Mill has been family-owned for 10 generations.
Every season, we work directly with their team to dye our new hues. After the wool is dyed, it's spun into yarn and wound onto gigantic spools. Then, the Germans weave. Once finished, the gorgeous fabric is sent to New York to be cut and sewn into the perfect NAOMI NOMI New Oxford just for you. Strong, soft, and timeless.
Merino's Superpowers
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Merino Edit
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Hemp Denim
This controversial plant that has been causing conversation for centuries.From Stem to Stitch
Hemp is a miraculous plant (and not just in the *coughcough* way you might think). Hemp is incredibly lightweight, durable, long-lasting, and sustainable. Actually in terms of being low impact, it's second only to our wool.
Need proof? Allow us to get down to brass tacks:
Hemp has the power to: yield up to 1300lb of fiber/acre (double the amount of cotton and 160% more than linen), grow prosperously sans pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers, use 70% less water per season as irrigated cotton, be harvested within 100 days of being planted, and grow for up to 20 years straight in the same location without need for crop rotation or soil replenishment.
Our Hemp DenimOur Hemp Denim is comprised of 45% OSC Certified organic cotton grown in India & dyed in China and 55% hemp grown and harvested in China. The Chinese have the longest history of hemp cultivation (6000 years since 2700 BC!!), so you could say they know a thing or two.
meet our
Organic Cotton
A white cotton shirt to your wardrobe is like the flour to your pantry or a tampon in your purse.You know you’ll always need it.
From Field to Fabric
It is estimated that 30% of the world’s textiles are, in part, cotton. Originating in the 5th millennium B.C., it is safe to say that cotton is the most widely used fabric in human history.
The cotton plant starts as a flower and then matures into a beautiful ball of fluff, which is gathered and then spun into the soft fabric we love. The term cotton refers to the soft fibers inside the hard encased plant. Picked by hand for centuries, the biggest innovations in cotton came in the 13th century in India with the first cotton gin and then the 19th century in the U.S. with the mechanical cotton gin. The mechanical cotton gin alone cut the amount of time it took to separate the cotton fluff from the plant down to 12 hours from 600 hours.
The cotton plant starts as a flower and then matures into a beautiful ball of fluff, which is gathered and then spun into the soft fabric we love. The term cotton refers to the soft fibers inside the hard encased plant. Picked by hand for centuries, the biggest innovations in cotton came in the 13th century in India with the first cotton gin and then the 19th century in the U.S. with the mechanical cotton gin. The mechanical cotton gin alone cut the amount of time it took to separate the cotton fluff from the plant down to 12 hours from 600 hours.
Is our cotton organic?
Indeed! Our cotton hails from Turkey and is constructed in a traditional double-faced Oxford basketweave that gives it that intricately subtle checkerboard texture.
When selecting our cotton, we wanted a weight that was strong enough to be thrown around yet billowy enough to feel effortless.
Why’s it called Oxford?
Back in the 19th century, a guy who owned a Scottish textile mill had a brilliant idea for a marketing campaign: name the season’s fabrics after all the fancy universities. All the rich boys who go to these schools will want them and they will all sell - cue happily ever after.
Well, it kind of worked! No one really liked the Cambridge, Harvard and Yale weaves, but the Oxford — now that was a hit. Known for its yarn’s criss-crossing basket weave, Oxford cloth became a mainstay of the closets of British polo players (it was breathable and the closest thing they had to sportswear). Eventually, Oxford became the name of the shirt itself, too.
Back in the 19th century, a guy who owned a Scottish textile mill had a brilliant idea for a marketing campaign: name the season’s fabrics after all the fancy universities. All the rich boys who go to these schools will want them and they will all sell - cue happily ever after.
Well, it kind of worked! No one really liked the Cambridge, Harvard and Yale weaves, but the Oxford — now that was a hit. Known for its yarn’s criss-crossing basket weave, Oxford cloth became a mainstay of the closets of British polo players (it was breathable and the closest thing they had to sportswear). Eventually, Oxford became the name of the shirt itself, too.
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Cotton Edit
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From Cocoon to Cloth
Made from the cocoon of silkworms, silk is a natural filament that takes a long time to materialize. 5 weeks from the time the silkworms are hatched, they will have gotten 10,000 times heavier and eaten 50,000 times their initial weight in plant material. Once it’s good and chubby, the worm is ready to begin spinning its cocoon. The silk is then made from the natural filament that makes up their cocoon, an 8 day process that produces thread approximately one mile long. To put it into perspective, it takes about 2500 silkworms to produce one pound of raw, 100% silk.
Once the thread is produced, it’s woven into a twill formation which gives our fabric its glorious movement.
Once the thread is produced, it’s woven into a twill formation which gives our fabric its glorious movement.
Who We Work With
Our silk is woven and printed in the city of Hangzhou, one of the seven ancient capitals of China commonly known as "the house of silk." With silk fabrics uncovered in the region dating back 4,700 years to the Neolithic Liangzhu culture (3400-2250 BC), you could say they're pros by now. That said, while the process of making silk is ancient, we work hard to be constantly innovating. All of our scarves are made using technology that digitally prints ink on both sides of the silk, meaning no side of the fabric is less saturated in vibrant color than the other. It's a wild technological feat that no other printing process could achieve.
It's pretty. What else?
With its long, tightly woven fibers, silk can actually regulate your body temperature and keeps you toasty, hot, steamy, and sexy.
With its long, tightly woven fibers, silk can actually regulate your body temperature and keeps you toasty, hot, steamy, and sexy.
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Cotton Flannel
Warm, fluffy, and with bedding-level softness, it's the material you'll reach for from autumn to spring.From Fiber to Finish
With a finer, softer, and fluffier hand feel than merino wool, cotton flannel packs an incredible warmth-preserving punch without being quite as heavy as other typical cool-weather fabrics. What distinguishes flannel from other cotton textiles is the thread is loosely spun and brushed with metal to gently raise small fibers that give it its characteristic downy feel.
No Crumbs
Covered in the excess fabric scraps from the making of the shirt, even the buttons are lusciously soft to the touch.
Covered in the excess fabric scraps from the making of the shirt, even the buttons are lusciously soft to the touch.
meet our
Weighted Linen
When we die, bury us in linen like Egypt's ancient mummies.From Ground to Garment
Made from the flax plant, linen goes through quite the process from ground to garment.
First, it’s harvested through pulling rather than cutting to get the longest fibers possible. Next, the harvested plant must be stooked, which is the process of tying the flax linen together, and then it’s left out to dry standing in bundles called, “beats.” Once dry, the seeds are removed from the flax in a combing-like process called scutching. Only then, when the plant stock has been separated from the fibers, are we able to spin the yarn.
Woven in Ireland from flax grown in France and Belgium, our new weighted summer linen is soft against the skin, textured to the touch, and oh-so breathable. Because of its porous nature, linen is naturally moisture-wicking, keeping you dry all day long.
First, it’s harvested through pulling rather than cutting to get the longest fibers possible. Next, the harvested plant must be stooked, which is the process of tying the flax linen together, and then it’s left out to dry standing in bundles called, “beats.” Once dry, the seeds are removed from the flax in a combing-like process called scutching. Only then, when the plant stock has been separated from the fibers, are we able to spin the yarn.
Woven in Ireland from flax grown in France and Belgium, our new weighted summer linen is soft against the skin, textured to the touch, and oh-so breathable. Because of its porous nature, linen is naturally moisture-wicking, keeping you dry all day long.
Like wearing your favorite summer blanket
And it’s not horrific for the planet
About those wrinkles...
Because our linen is 100% natural, yeah, it wrinkles, and yeah we love that!
Remember, “wrinkle free” linen is code for “chemically treated” linen. The folds are beautiful - soft landscapes that gather near the hem. Toss it on the floor and pick it up the next day - gravity will do the rest. Like all of our clothes, they’re meant to be worn, not hung for display.
OK, one more fun fact:
The reason our colors are so vibrant is because linen naturally holds pigment extremely well. When that same flax plant is extracted into oil, it’s called linseed -- a super common material used in traditional oil painting. Linseed oil helps the paint pigment hold those same super vibrant colors.
meet our
Lyocell Twill
Sometimes, you fall in love and you let that love, make all the decisions.That's why we use lyocell.
From Tree to Twill
Once the wood pulp is spun into thread, it’s woven into a twill fabric. The twill weave (which you can see from the fabric's tiny diagonal lines) puts a healthy dose of movement into the material. With a cool black finish, it hangs like water off the body.
This closed-loop production process takes the material from the forest, to wood chips, to pulp, to fiber, to yarn, to fabric, all the way back to NAOMI NOMI’s studio. When we touched it, we fell in love. Now it’s your turn.
This closed-loop production process takes the material from the forest, to wood chips, to pulp, to fiber, to yarn, to fabric, all the way back to NAOMI NOMI’s studio. When we touched it, we fell in love. Now it’s your turn.
Can’t Stop Touching it
Made from the pulp of eucalyptus trees, lyocell feels like a cross between cotton and silk. Soft to the touch, it’s like stroking a tissue made from breathable, ultra thin suede.
Why eucalyptus trees? Because they grow super fast, without irrigation, or any need for pesticides. Plus, as a biodegradable fabric, 99.5% of the dissolving agent can be used repeatedly.
Why eucalyptus trees? Because they grow super fast, without irrigation, or any need for pesticides. Plus, as a biodegradable fabric, 99.5% of the dissolving agent can be used repeatedly.
On the topic of H2O...
Lyocell's production has the potential to use less than half as much water as cotton.
Plus, when made it into a garment, lyocell has the ability to absorb up to 20% of its own weight in moisture, it is incredibly breathable
i.e., no need to wash after every wear.
Lyocell's production has the potential to use less than half as much water as cotton.
Plus, when made it into a garment, lyocell has the ability to absorb up to 20% of its own weight in moisture, it is incredibly breathable
i.e., no need to wash after every wear.
Still not sure how it feels?
We get it.
Let us send you a swatch!
(yes, for free)
We get it.
Let us send you a swatch!
(yes, for free)
