You sign the buy and carry the cash that sits in stock.
A number per size, per style, and the reason for it, written so you could defend it to anyone who asks.
Signs · carries the risk
The problem
Every brand decides how much to make months before anyone buys it. Half the time, the number is wrong.
Not because anyone is careless. Because the decision is made from a spreadsheet, a memory of last season and a trend report written for everyone. Then it locks, long before a single customer sees the product.
50%
How often the production number turns out right, by the account of the people who set it.
30%
Of a season still sitting in inventory after every markdown, outlet and lot deal.
2030
Since July 2026, large brands can no longer destroy what they cannot sell. In 2030 the same rule reaches medium-sized brands. Soon, it is you.
What it costs
$70 to $140 billion. What the industry made in one year and could not sell.
Two and a half to five billion pieces of excess stock, by the industry’s own estimate. And the bill keeps running: holding unsold stock costs a brand roughly a fifth to a third of its value every year, before a single markdown.
The markdown is the part that lingers. Discount a third of the range and you teach your customer that full price is the wrong price, so next season’s full-price sell-through falls too. One collection can do that to a brand.
In the trade, it has a name
“Whatever stays in inventory is bad debt. The faster a product sells out, the better the business.”
Sources · BoF and McKinsey, The State of Fashion 2025 · McKinsey, thinking beyond markdowns · European Commission, ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes · practitioner interviews, 2026
Who we are
We don’t tell you what’s trending. We tell you what works on you.
Kapada Studios works on one decision: how much to make.
We started with an observation. Every brand we spoke to made the buy from a spreadsheet, a memory of last season and a trend report that told every other brand the same thing. The better signal was already inside the building: two seasons of what actually sold, by size and by style. Nobody was reading it properly.
We are building the tool that does. The idea is simple to say and hard to do: a number per size, with the evidence beside it, so the most sceptical person in the room can ask why and get an answer.
Who it’s for
Every brand that makes things before it knows who will buy them.
Which is every brand. A two-person label and a hundred-person house make the same bet, months out, with the same tools. Three people in that building carry the number, and each of them should get something different from what we build.
You want to know why, and you are right to ask.
No score on your work, ever. A record of what your customers actually did with it, size by size, colour by colour.
Asks why · gets an answer
You already do this in a spreadsheet. It should do more.
The history you already have should do more of the work, and show it. Rate of sale, size curves, what came back, in one place.
Sets the number · owns the sheet
Any size · any market · any category
If you make it before you sell it, this is for you.
What we’re building
What the buy should look like.
Five ideas we work from →A number per size.
A quantity per size, per style, resting on what your customers actually did rather than on a hunch. Every number should be able to say where it came from.
Per size · per style · with its sample
Your signal first.
Trend reports tell every brand the same thing. What happened inside your brand should count for more than what is happening outside it, and you should be able to move that balance yourself.
Internal over external · you set the balance
“Why did you say that?”
Every number should open to the observations behind it. How many pieces, how many seasons, which sizes moved first. Written for the sceptic in the room, because that is who should press it.
Every claim ends in its sample size
The hindcast.
Before anyone trusts a number, it should be run against a season that has already happened. Where it would have been right, where it would have missed, in the open.
Your history · checked against what happened
What it refuses.
No scores, no grades, no verdict on anyone’s creative work. Where the data cannot support a number, it should say so and recommend a cautious first buy.
Certain about being uncertain
How we work together
We would rather build it with you than for you.
01 · A conversation
You tell us how the number gets made today.
Who decides, what they look at, when it locks. We listen. No deck, no pitch.
02 · A season of history
You share what sold, by size and style. We run it back.
Then we walk you through it, line by line: where it would have been right, and where it would have missed.
03 · A buy, planned together
One drop, with the evidence beside every number.
If it is not better than your spreadsheet, you keep the spreadsheet.
Early partners shape what gets built. There is no price list yet, on purpose: we are still learning what this should cost a brand and what it saves, and the brands who work with us now set that with us. What we may do with your data is written down at the start, never discovered later.
Build it with us