New York Fabric Shopping Spree

As you saw from my last post, I was lucky to have some NY shopping experts with me and although time was short and we only visited 3 stores, they were all different shopping experiences and close enough to each other that I recommend visits to all of them if your time is short too. For full reviews of these stores and many more in the garment district do visit LindsayT's blog, she also has some great articles and maps too, all handily referenced in the sidebar.

Here's where we went and what I bought....

First stop was Mood Fabrics of Project Runway fame. This is a large, but well organised store, a great place to go if you have a good idea of what you are looking for. Or you can be like me and wander around till something jumps out. I only bought 1 piece here, a peacock inspired cotton print, not cheap for a cotton, but gorgeous quality.

Next up was Elliott Berman Textiles. Lots of lovely designer fabrics here at very reasonable prices. They also have swatches of a large range of their fabrics at the front of the store so you can shop those if you find it easier. This was a very relaxing shopping experience, we were the only customers in the store at the time. I'd decided to focus on fabrics that are difficult to get in Hong Kong - knits - so that's what I bought here - 3 pieces.

Sensible

Loud

Crazy (this is an Elie Tahari if I remember right)

Finally, Carolyn took me to one of her favourite spots, Metro Textiles. This is a relatively small store, but manages to cram a lot in. If you know what you want the owner can probably dig it out for you, but it's kind of fun to dig around and see what you find and the prices are good. Here was where I stocked up on some basic knits and a couple of extra impulse buys.

Plain knits

Printed knits

Mystery (to me) fabric for jacket, silk print, border print cotton

You know this all looks quite restrained to me now, but it weighed a ton! It's fortunate for me that the US regulates airline baggage by piece and not by weight.

It is baking hot and extremely humid in Hong Kong now and I really need to make some summer tops and dresses so hopefully most of these won't be in my stash for too long. Stay tuned!