As a consultant to innovative emerging designers, one of the primary projects my company M SHOP is commisioned with is sourcing fabric. We’re tasked with uncovering deeply hidden suppliers of innumerable fabric fibers, types and structures; scouring the multitudes of possible textiles for designers to build their first sample from, and eventually birth their collections. I am continuously blown away by how difficult finding the right fabric can be when just starting out. With all the technology we have at our fingertips, designers with a vision still need to touch and feel fabrics, which cancels out just being able to view images of fabrics on any smart devices in order to make a selection. In addition, in most cases just accessing suppliers in general is daunting and there’s no easy way to weed out the bad suppliers from the good. This needs to change!
Don’t get me wrong, yes fabric can be googled, and we do have web databases that list multitudes of fabric suppliers that we can go onto and seek out sellers from; like our own E-Resource Guides sold on mshopnyc.com, Makersrow, The Sourcing District and Alibaba, to name a few. But from these databases we still need to build a massive list to comparison shop like crazy, and also learn by trial and error which is the best fabric supplier to use. I’d love to develop an app that denotes whether the fabric hand or drape will be appropriate that also informs just who the competent suppliers are with decsription and price comparisons. That’s definitely on my list of to-do’s. This way we can all use the arduous hours spent fabric sourcing on designing superior products, innovating and increasing sales.
And for those designers who want to keep things completely “Made in the USA” there are more issues, especially since there aren’t many mills (the plants that actually produce the fabrics) left on this side of the world. And let me not even get on the subject of minimums—it’s still difficult for me to fathom why mills don’t update their systems to consolidate orders so that a few brands order together to meet the 1,000–3,000- yard minimums versus only one brand being required to order such high yardages. Think Kinkos; for more than a few years now, we can buy a template to make only 10 business cards, and not have to order hundreds or thousands if we don’t need so many, like we used to in the past. As we become more of a DIY society, minimums will certainly have to be addressed, unless the future is 3D printing all of our textiles, or some other new technology that we’re not aware of yet. Only time will tell.
We do have fabric trade fairs where suppliers set up their booths and introduce their offerings to brands. But for the new kid, they can be a bit overwhelming; they tend to be information overload, and many times lack enough organization for the attendee to best pinpoint who in the bunch is selling what they actually need. The truth is when searching for fabric we have to go old school, sending swatches back and forth. I’ve ranted about new technology in previous articles, but how do we get up to speed with technology in an area where touch and feel are imperative, and certain things just can’t be done online? If anyone out there knows, please reach out.
Some of our clients, before they find us, commit what I consider the heinous crime of purchasing fabric for their collections from fabric stores (retailers) because they just can’t find the larger supplier. To that I say, Stop! You Will Not Be Profitable! That fabric is already marked up. How do you then mark up your costs? Thus, I hereby challenge the industry to do better. Fabric suppliers and “techies” unite and work with us to resolve this issue. Although M SHOP gets hired often for fabric sourcing, even we find the process a long and exhausting journey.
Can a designer survive without looking at fabric in person? To that I say, only if they design basics. And the target market of designers we serve, and newbies just graduating from fashion school, do not design basics. They are attempting to create something wonderful and new. And the industry needs to be more in tune and structured to meet their demand. Any progress we can make in this realm will help the greater good of propelling manufacturing forward into what I’ve coined “makerfacturing” (collaborative making, responsiveness, transparency, new technology, sustainability, diverse hubs, new trade agreements, reshoring and a fresh perspective) to deliver spectacular product to our customers.
Michelle Alleyne
Founder, MShopNYC.com
Professor, Parsons School of Fashion
Instagram/Twitter/Snapchat @mshopnyc
www.mshopnyc.com
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