How To Find Fabrics For Your Clothing Line (part 1)

So, it’s that time of year again……Time to design your next collection…..and find some fantabulous fabrics that will inspire sell-out pieces and get your Instagram followers all in a tiz!!!

So, where do you start looking for fabrics?    If you are still over-paying retail stores its time to stop that and take your business seriously. 🧵

You could use dead stock fabric or start some up-cycling etc, but if your brand really needs metreage you should start attending the professional trade events.   These will be taking place worldwide over the next few months showing fabrics & trends for A/W ‘22 and the London Textile Fair starts in just a few days!

Fabric fairs are opening live for the first time since the pandemic and the London Textile Fair starts on Wednesday 13th July.   Premiere Vision New York is 20th & 21st July and Premiere Vision Paris is 21st & 23rd September live or 20th to 24th September on-line.

The fabric fairs are not only the best place to source your fabrics and sometimes also manufacturers, they are also the perfect place to attend trend seminars and spark your imagination to develop creative collections.

Before attending any of these events you firstly need to register on their website and this year PV Paris, for the first time ever, is free, even for the live event!

After registering, to get the most from the event I suggest that you you sit down and plan a rough outline of what you want to  achieve.   These events, particularly PV Paris, are large and you don’t want to waste time meandering aimlessly.

What types of fabrics do you need , what quantities, widths, composition and for what purpose?  

Look at the directories on the event website and research the various suppliers.   Create a list of the suppliers you would like to see when you attend.

Do you want to spend some time in the trend area or attend a seminar?

Do you need to book flights, trains, hotels?   Some of the fabric events have hotel details on their websites that may offer special deals.    

Prepare a fabric sourcing pack.    I suggest including:

• Notebook
• Stapler to attach fabric swatches
• Pens, pencils & rubber
• Phone chargers (Its a long day and you might be using your camera a lot)
• Business cards 

If the website has one, download a floor plan and mark off the companies you want to visit so that you can plan your route strategically and avoid wasting your day meandering all over the floor.

On the day of the event wear layers and comfortable shoes as you will be on your feet all day. If , like PV Paris, they have a cloakroom head there first to drop off any heavy bags and coats you won’t need.

When you arrive at the event hopefully you already have a floor plan with the list of companies mapped out but if not pick a floor plan up, go to a coffee shop (they all have refreshment areas) to sit down and plan your route.

When you visit each fabric stand firstly you want to have a general look and pull out any fabric hangers that interest you.   Some will have the fabric width, MOQ’s (minimum order quantity) and price on the back of the hanger and if not you will just have to ask.

When you’ve pulled out a few hangers sit down with the fabric supplier, pass him/her your business card and ask some questions about the fabrics you are interested in.  Here are a few things you might want to ask:

• Fabric width
• Production fabric minimums and cost per metre 
• Sampling minimums and cost per metre
• Colourways
• Lead times (how long they will take to ship) for sampling and also for production quantities.

Ask for a hanger and/or swatch of the fabrics you are interested in (most will, although with prints or highly decorative fabric they might only provide a photograph).   The hangers will be posted to you and the supplier or agent will probably staple your swatch to their own paperwork with the fabric details.   If they do not do this, or you don’t order a hanger,  you can staple a swatch in your notebook writing down the supplier details, agent details (if they have one in your country) cost (sampling & production), width, minimums (sampling and production), sampling colour and production colour availability (there might just be one seasonal colour available for small quantity sampling).   

Have fun and network.   Its a great opportunity to make connections and you can also find manufacturers at some of these events.  For example PV Paris has a huge section devoted entirely to manufacturers.

After the event you want to review all your notes, swatches, trend info etc.   Then you’re ready to start designing.    Your hangers should start arriving and soon you’ll be ready to order sampling quantities.   

I’ll talk more about Premiere Vision in part 2 of this blog, but for now I want to give you a brief introduction to the London Textile Fair which you can attend live, in person on Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th July at The Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 OQH.

It’s their first live show after the pandemic 😷 but if you can’t attend live you can find fabric mills and agents through their on-line fabric & print directory.  Here you can also download a list of exhibitor floor plans, view trend forecasts and find hotels with special attendee rates.

The London Textile Fair has exhibitors from all over Europe including the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey and Portugal showing fashion fabrics, accessories, prints and vintage garments.

Before sourcing fabrics you need a fairly good understanding of the different qualities available, so that you know how they behave when sewing, what’s the most suitable for your design and what will not work for your design etc.   You need to know what to look for and you definitely don’t want to waste time and money, fighting a losing battle, trying to develop a design in a material that will never achieve the outcome you want.

If you’ve forgotten everything your textile science teacher taught you at school that’s OK because I have a refresher for you in FEA (join the waitlist below).

Here is a list of the types of fabric you will find at the London Textile Fair:

• Cotton
• Shirting
• Jersey
• Silk
• Outerwear
• Rainwear
• Eco friendly
• Coated fabric
• Printed fabric
• Wool
• Worsted
• Linen
• Tweed
• Fancies
• Flannel
• Synthetics
• Technical
• And more…

They also have a huge range of accessories and trims from simple staples to more exclusive articles.  If you haven't yet found a label, hang tag supplier or even packaging then you’ll probably find that here too.   Here’s what you can find:

• Linings
• Leather Labels
• Woven labels
• Hang tags
• Pullers
• Patches
• Frogs
• Straps
• Embroideries
• Studs
• Rivets
• Tags
• Packaging
• Personalised accessories
• Buttons (military, horn, glass, nylon, resin, mop, corozo, river shell etc.)
• Cuff links
• Buckles
• And more…

Happy fabric hunting!!!!   I’ll be back next week with some helpful tips on attending Premiere Vision in New York or Paris.

Toodloo 😊

p.s.  Here’s the link I mentioned to join the waitlist for FEA:

Click to join the waitlist for Fashion Entrepreneurs Academy