Finding fabric
So where on earth do all these awesome apparel companies get their fabric?
In most cases, likely from somewhere like Mexico, China, Vietnam. For super tiny startup people like yours truly though, I hunt for fabric now everywhere from Etsy to Joann Fabrics.
This has been one of the hardest parts of the whole journey of starting an apparel company honestly. The number of fabrics out there, and the effort required to find a suitable option for something that meets the criteria for a new product like this...well it's just a lot. To top it off I have no idea what I'm doing, so that always helps.
Questions are constantly running through my head like...
- What if I find a fabric I love, and I can't get enough of it to make products with?
- What if I find one I love, but it's so insanely expensive it makes no sense to use it?
- Or what if the supplier is completely unreliable and I can never get the fabric in the right amounts or on time?
How do apparel businesses handle this? Seems daunting, but surely there's a series of steps from where I'm at now (fabric samples spread across my kitchen counter) to a seamless production line? Surely.
Do we have a winner with the dinosaur fabric by the way? I think so.
Anyway. There's no way around this sort of exploration at this stage, so best dive in. Ultimately most are not going to work at all. I think part of the issue with most of these sadly is that when some have the right softness, they're far too thin.
From this stack of about 30 sample from Online Fabric Store and GK Fashion Fabrics I have found about three or four winners (yes, including the dinosaurs).
The point of the product is to be thick enough to absorb sweat and not be seen through while also being thin enough to make your sweating worse. The dinosaur fabric itself is interesting because it's got this pattern side with the dinosaurs all over it, giving me the impression it's easy to print whatever I want on that side, with an absorbent inside for wicking up sweat, and being mostly breathable.
Will have to order more of this for sure.
Waffle fabrics, Turkish cotton, and microfiber probably make the most sense otherwise. So I have a few candidates.
That's all for now. If the point of this blog is to have something interesting for me to come back to later (if ever), I have certainly made fabric as interesting as I know how today.