Profile: Modern Fabrics
Tell us more about Modern Fabrics:
Modern Fabrics is a mom-n-pop fabric reclamation company targeting excess contemporary interior textiles left over from the manufacture of contract furniture. These fabrics are new and current designs by leading design houses. (At this time, we rarely handle discontinued fabrics, mill overruns, closeouts, or residential grade fabrics)
We started Modern Fabrics in early 2007 when I noticed large quantities of leftover fabrics waiting to be disposed of while visiting area furniture manufacturers. Since 2005, I have constructed prototypes, showroom/photography samples, and custom upholstered furniture for several manufacturers so I had access to their cut & sew workrooms and fabric/leather warehouses. Initially, I would pick through the waste bins for my own small projects. But I could never get over the quality and sheer quantity of fabrics I left behind. Every week became a treasure hunt! Before long, Ewa and I decided we had to try and create a market for this excess fabric because we certainly could not keep it all!
And so, by partnering with furniture manufacturers who had an ongoing supply of textile waste, Modern Fabrics was born.
We launched the Modern Fabrics website and online store Summer 2007. The internet has proven to be the best place to start our business and reach out to customers everywhere. Our online store is open 24/7 and with the help of complimentary websites and blogs, new customers discover Modern Fabrics constantly. Our customers cover a wide range of DIY, crafters, interior designers, decorators, architects, and artists. We have been fortunate to reach our customers through word-of-mouth, blogs, national print publications, search engines, and online forums. Our fabric mail-order business has steadily grown and has allowed us to open a brick-and-mortar retail shop in Charlotte (January 2009).
Our customers cannot get over the quality of our fabrics. We receive comments all the time about people unable to find these unique fabrics in the Carolinas. Every one of them is floored when we explain these fabrics were going to our regional landfills!
Our goal is to help inspire the reuse of these fabrics in every project, no matter how big or small.
What is your background?
Ewa is a full-time graphic designer with her business partner John Boatwright at their company Winkbox Ewa has a degree in graphic design and photography.
James runs Modern Fabrics full time, while Ewa and John handle all of our design, web, print, and advertising materials. James has a degree in architecture.
James and Ewa Powell have been married 6 years and have two children, Kora (age 5) and Henry (age 3). We moved to Lincolnton in 2002 (James is from Boca Raton, Florida and Ewa is from Warsaw, Poland (emmigrated to Chicago when she was 12 years old.)
What is going on around North Carolina that excites you?
Modern Fabrics has enjoyed providing fabric for many designers, decorators, crafters, and artists in North Carolina. Since opening our store in Charlotte, it has been refreshing to see many homeowners or renters, soccer moms, DIY decorators, sewists, and crafters (you name it!) working on new projects, updating their furniture and window treatments, making pillows or handbags, and generally doing things to improve their surroundings by making them more functional, comfortable, and satisfying. Reupholstery is very common during these economic times, although it may be a common practice altogether in the Charlotte region. Instead of new furniture, our customers are creating large throw pillows (double faced for double duty), making slipcovers, or just replacing cushions with complimentary or contrasting fabrics.
Most exciting to us is helping promote an increased appreciation of modern design in the Carolinas. Historically, North Carolina has nurtured and influenced modernism and teaching rooted in Bauhaus theory. Namely, teachers and students associated with Black Mountain College have been very influential in 20th Century through present day design. It is wonderful North Carolinians are becoming more open to modern design, less bound to the old and traditional.
North Carolina has a wonderful network of crafters and designers who often make things out of repurposed, otherwise discarded materials. While this is often due to necessity (it’s free and readily available), many artisans are conscious of the necessity to recycle and reuse things rather than rely on manufactured raw materials made who-knows-where. These groups of creative people are found throughout our state. We are fortunate in North Carolina to have a tradition of making, whether it be sewing, weaving, throwing pottery, upholstery or solid wood furniture. Add to these traditions the number of creative people embracing these decorative and functional arts and you can understand our enthusiasm for being a part of this community.
Any advice to fledgling business owners?
Find your niche, be patient, yet proactive and by all means embrace the internet! If you have a good idea or message, the internet is the best way to get feedback about your idea, product, or service. The internet is inexpensive, reliable, and ubiquitous.
Comments
Dang! You got to speak to them before I did! I keep trying to make it over there, but the little critter in my belly is more in tune with me taking naps than actually accomplishing anything!
What a great post, and so great to know Charlotte can sometimes be supportive of progressive ideas!
Do you know of any businesses, like yours, that carry leftover designer apparel fabric??
Tanks much, for your time! Kim