Textile Industry Directories: Fabric Companies and Textile Machinery Guides

The Textile Industry Directory: Companies That Sell Fabrics

The Textile Industry Directory was the listing for companies that sell fabrics. A textile company used it to make certain its information was listed where apparel manufacturers, designers and sourcing staff looked for fabric suppliers. Fabric is the raw material decision behind every garment — fiber, weave or knit, weight, finish and price all start at the fabric supplier — so a dedicated fabric directory served a different search from a general clothing directory: the reader arrived knowing the material was needed and looking for the companies that could supply it. The directory is one of the two on this page that had been closed by 2014, and its description remains for historical reference.

The Textile Machinery Directory: Equipment Makers and Distributors

The Textile Machinery Directory covered the equipment side of the same trade: companies that manufacture or distribute textile machinery and equipment for the fashion, textiles or apparel industry. Machinery searches are specification-led in a way garment searches are not — a mill or factory looks for equipment by process, such as spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, finishing, cutting or sewing, and by capacity — so machinery makers and distributors were grouped in their own directory rather than mixed into fabric listings. Like the fabric directory, it had been closed by 2014 and is described here for historical reference only.

Working Textile Routes on Apparel Search

The textile research those two directories supported continues through the Apparel Search sections linked at the top of this page. The Textile Industry hub is the general entrance to the textile trade, and the fabric section works down to materials themselves, backed by the fabric Definitions list for terminology. The Textile fiber Directory organizes the raw fibers that fabrics are made from, which is the right starting point when a specification begins with fiber content rather than a finished cloth. Textile Machinery leads to equipment coverage, Textile Jobbers explains and lists the jobber trade — the intermediaries who buy and resell fabric lots — and Textile Waste covers the disposal and recycling end of the material cycle. The Textile Design Software Directory serves the digital side of fabric development, and the Textile Industry News directory keeps trade coverage separate from company listings.

Choosing Between a Fabric, Fiber and Machinery Search

The three searches answer different questions. A fabric search starts from a cloth the garment needs and looks for sellers of that cloth. A fiber search starts one step earlier, from the raw material — cotton, wool, silk, linen or a manufactured fiber — and is the better route when performance, care or sustainability requirements are set by fiber content. A machinery search starts from a process the factory needs to perform and looks for the equipment and its distributors. Keeping the three apart mirrors how the directories themselves were organized: fabrics in the textile industry directory, equipment in the textile machinery directory, and fibers in their own directory. A reader who is unsure which route fits can begin at the Textile Industry hub and narrow from there, or cross to the companion Fashion Industry Directories page for the garment-side directories.

Adding a Textile Directory

Directory coverage of a trade as wide as textiles is never complete, and other directories specific to the textile industry are welcome additions to this page. Readers who know a textile directory that belongs here — for fabrics, fibers, machinery or any other part of the textile supply chain — are invited to let Apparel Search know. Suggestions are most useful when they name the directory, state what it lists, and say which part of the textile trade it serves, so it can be placed alongside the fabric and machinery directories it belongs with.