Textiles
By Kristen Augenfeld

With the diminishing textile companies in Massachusetts, Boston-based designers have to resort to fabric stores to construct their designs.

It is difficult to plan ahead and stock up on materials, with the process of design, from an idea or sketch to the completion of a garment, being a progression of constant change. Also, having pre-determined materials would create an obstacle in reacting to evolving trends.

Since a pilgrimage to Seventh Avenue in New York City is expensive and time-consuming, two factors detrimental to designers, they have to shop elsewhere for materials, preferably locally, whether it is at a chain store or a solitary business. 

Chain stores, when not focusing on window treatments or upholstery, often have a limited range of fashion fabrics that are not constantly updated. If there is not enough yardage available, it can usually be ordered or a different location can be visited.  Though the fabric can often be bought at a discount through sales or widely-distributed coupons, the selection is often limited and usually seasonal or very basic, at such places as Jo-ann Fabrics, the Fabric Place, and even Wal-mart.Other fabric stores often carry material cut in limited lengths and more often will carry a discontinued style.  Prices are steeper, but the selection unique.

Usually, when there is a low supply of a product or an inability to reach it, consumers resort to shopping online.  Though this requires no traveling, it is hard to visualize a fabric exactly, even with an extensive background knowledge of textiles and fibers that a designer develops throughout their career. The precise qualities of a fabric are hard to identify without physically seeing or touching it, such as the pigment or pattern being off in a website, which could entirely throw off a color palette, and not being able to feel the weight of the material, which is necessary to know how it will fall on the body when made into a garment.

No matter where a designer shops, supply, selection and price is key, and a lack of transportation to these few and far between locations, especially for local design students, proves to be a major relative issue. The future of Boston designers looks bright, but the availability of fabrics is beginning to look bleak.