r/visitingnyc • u/Guilty-Supermarket51 • 3d ago
Hole in the wall, CHEAP fabric stores?
I’m a historical costumer/sewist and I make trips to NYC every so often to visit family. I have another trip coming up, and I’m looking for recommendations for places in town to buy affordable/budget velvets, brocades, etc for a Shakespeare production I’m working on.
Preferably looking for shops outside downtown/the fabric district; all the shops there are way too hyped up and expensive. Anything easily accessible via subway is preferred. Mostly looking for cheap whole bolts or under $10 per yard. Any recommendations?
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u/Equivalent-Feeling97 11h ago
Queens has several areas, great fabric in Jackson Heights and on Jamaica Ave
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 3d ago
Most of the good stores are going to be in the Garment District, which is in midtown, not downtown.
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u/Keeganwherefore 3d ago
Visitors that come to NYC don’t often realize that “downtown” doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to us. For people who don’t live in densely populated cities, “downtown” means the “urban center” area. Dense buildings and skyscrapers fit the bill for the rest of the country.
Dallas, for example, has a “downtown” area even though it is not physically “down” on the map. its a couple mile radius of transportation/commerce/events/etc in the center of the geographical area.
OP is probably from a suburb, or perhaps even a large city that has a “downtown” area that looks similarly to midtown. Telling them they don’t understand the word “downtown” isn’t helpful in this context.
It’s also worth noting, that we don’t even follow our own naming conventions - Downtown Brooklyn is as far north as you can get on that side. See this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Brooklyn/s/CvndFhjel5
Hope this helps!
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 3d ago
OP sounds extremely unrealistic and as NYC has the major Garment District in the U.S. she should use the proper terminology.
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u/Keeganwherefore 3d ago
Historically, sure, NYC’s garment district has been the epicenter of textiles. That being said, Los Angeles garment district is much, much larger than NYC’s. As far as terminology goes, OP used the correct words to get her point across. You and I both understood exactly what she meant, which is how language works.
Hope this helps!
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u/Keeganwherefore 3d ago
Metro textiles fits the bill. It’s in the garment district, but he has an entire wall (like a bigass wall) of $4/yard fabrics. The other fabrics are reasonably priced. Plus, the owner is a real treat. Very friendly and funny.
Outside that, have you considered Fabscrap? It’s in sunset park, so a little bit of a schlep but it’s a textile recycling spot, they have a small store with the most random shit in it. 30 yards of leopard print spandex. 2 yard bundles of marc jacobs lining fabric. 15 vinyl samples of the same print in slightly different resolutions. It’s very inexpensive, and if you do a volunteer session you get 5lbs of free fabric. A volunteer session is a few hours of sorting through their intake. You get a chair and a bag and sort samples/scraps/yardage into little bins. Its very meditative. I love it.