About Fabric Search

What Fabric Search Is

Fabric Search was built as a specialist companion to Apparel Search, the apparel industry directory that links to virtually every aspect of apparel, fashion, textiles and clothing. Where the main directory ranges across the whole trade — manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, jobs, news and education — Fabric Search narrows the focus to the cloth itself: fibers, constructions, finishes, mills, distributors and fabric retailers. That narrower lens is what makes it useful. A product developer hunting for a particular jersey weight, a designer comparing twill with poplin, or a student learning what jacquard actually means can start from the fabric and work outward to suppliers.

The original Fabric Search pages were organised fabric by fabric, and that structure survives the move. Each fabric topic has its own small guide, typically split into a main explainer plus separate pages for mills, wholesalers, stores and links. Keeping those pages distinct matters because the questions behind them are different: someone sourcing at mill level thinks in minimums, greige goods and finishing routes, while someone buying a few yards at retail thinks in colour, width and price per yard. One combined page would serve neither reader well.

The September 2019 Merger

In September 2019 the Fabric Search website was merged onto the Apparel Search website. The content did not disappear; it moved under the ApparelSearch.com roof, in the fabric search section you are reading now. Bringing the two sites together means the fabric guides sit alongside the rest of the Apparel Search directory, so a reader who starts with a fabric can follow links into the wider fabric directory, the fiber guides, the wholesale fabric listings and the retail fabric directory without changing sites or learning a new layout.

The merger also keeps one editorial home for corrections and additions. Fabric Search is a division of the Apparel Search Company, and the combined site is maintained as a single directory with a single contact route. If you spot an outdated listing in these fabric pages, or a supplier that should be added, the main Apparel Search contact page is the place to send it, and the About Us section on ApparelSearch.com gives the fuller background on the company behind both names.

Who Uses These Guides

The readers of Fabric Search fall into three broad groups. The first is the trade: sourcing managers, product developers, pattern makers and garment manufacturers who need to find mills, wholesalers and distributors for a specific cloth, and who care about weight, finish, width and fibre content. The second is independent makers and small brands, who often buy at retail or small wholesale quantities and need to understand what a fabric will do before they commit to it. The third is students and researchers, who use the definitions, price guides and information links to ground coursework and market research.

For all three groups the working method is the same: identify the fabric first, then narrow by construction and supplier type. Start from the Fabric Search hub, pick the fabric topic that matches your project, and then choose the page that matches your buying level — mills for production sourcing, wholesalers for distribution quantities, stores for cut yardage. Reading the main fabric page first is worthwhile even for experienced buyers, because it sets out the variants, such as different corduroy wale counts or ringspun versus open-end cotton, that change price and performance.

How the Section Is Organised

At the top level the hub indexes every fabric topic in the section, from corduroy, cotton and flannel through to reflective fabric, yarn-dyed fabric and yarn itself, plus interior fabrics, furniture fabrics and a guide to finding good fabric suppliers. Within each topic the pattern repeats: a search hub page, a main fabric page, and supporting pages for mills, wholesalers, stores and links where the original guide had them. Cross-links between topics help when a project sits between categories — a cotton twill, for example, belongs to both the cotton story and the twill story.

Treat Fabric Search as a starting point rather than a final authority. Listings point you to suppliers whose own websites carry current ranges, minimums and prices, and those details change faster than any directory can track. Use these pages to build a shortlist, learn the vocabulary you need to brief a supplier properly, and understand the options in a fabric family — then confirm specifications, availability and terms directly with the mill, wholesaler or store before you place an order.