Fabric Shopping in LA's Fashion District

This past weekend I dragged Mandy downtown in search of some great fabric finds in LA's fashion district. Being a "planner," I read reviews of places on Yelp, and read about people's experiences on other blogs so I'd know what to expect, but it was still a bit overwhelming.

Here's a link to the official webpage for the Fashion District: www.fashiondistrict.org. As you can see, there are simply TONS of stores selling fabric! I have a few projects in mind that I needed large pieces of fabric for and thought I'd be able to find better deals by going to these places than ordering it online, and hopefully better selection than at Joann's.




I parked towards the south / east end of 9th street, on San Julian in a kind of sketchy looking lot with unclear information about when it closed.



Mandy and I then started walking up 9th street, where we were immediately inundated with dozens of small store fronts overrunning with fabric. Right away we started noticing a problem - even the ones that had cute-looking patterns did not have anything "useable" for anything we were doing / making, as the fabrics were all polyester or something stretchy and weird feeling - Here are some examples:

A little ways down, we reached Maple Street, home of Michael Levine, Inc., a "mega-store" of fabrics that I had read all about before we came. One one side of Maple was their regular store, while the other side of the street was the upholstery fabric and the "Loft" upstairs. (we did not make it to the Loft on this trip, but apparently the fabric in there is in giant bins already cut, and you have to dig through to find what you want, and then it is sold by the pound - like $2.50 / lb!).

In Michael Levine, we found LOTS of great fabrics! The selection of good quality choices was really amazing! So even though the prices weren't dirt-cheap by any means, it was still slightly less expensive than what I usually pay online - and I could see and touch the fabrics before choosing! Here's what we found:

clockwise: Me picking out striped fabric (see below); Mandy with her stack, waiting in line at the cutting table; my stack of choices waiting to be cut

After Michael Levine, we were pretty much done. The combination of the heat (why is there NO breeze downtown?!), and the overwhelming effect of all of the fabric options was exhausting! So even we only made it like 2 blocks, we were ready to go. I would say the adventure was a success, and lots of fun, even though ultimately I only found 1/3 of what I actually went in search of!


Of all of the fabrics I found that I just had-to-have, this was the only one that allowed me to check something off my list - I'm going to use this striped fabric to make a fabric covered wall in my bathroom! The little piece is a sample of fabric I'm using to make a skirt for the sink, which I brought along to coordinate.