A Material Girl
Circling HomeWork #43
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After my last HomeWork about my relationship with consumption (and after featuring textile artist Priya Wittman) it felt fitting to share more specifics of the what/where/how of my supplies. The materials are so much of what I love about sewing — it’s a pleasure to the senses. (I’m planning a longer essay about my relationship with art and pleasure. I have things to say!) But for now, buckle in, babes! It’s a fabric haul!
A few weeks ago, I visited my favorite place to buy materials, which is the FabScrap warehouse in Brooklyn. FabScrap is a textile recycling organization that sells fashion industry deadstock at a tiny fraction of its typical price, and it’s a gold mine. The selection is both wide and random, but I have never ever left unsatisfied. I was telling Lynnette that, each time I think about visiting, I worry that I’ve hyped it up too much in my mind — was it really that good? And every time, it’s incredible! They should be paying me for marketing.
At a traditional fabric store where materials are sold by length, a lot of these would be considered novelty apparel fabrics, and sell for $20/yard or more — potentially much more. At FabScrap, all scraps are sold by weight for $7/pound. On this visit, I bought nearly 25 pounds of fabric, forty pieces in all. This came to just under $170. This is high for one visit, but these will form the bulk of my materials for many months. Also, the same could cost five times as much elsewhere, which would be . . . prohibitive.
