Fabric shopping in Paris.
As many a young designer must do once in a wile, I spent my afternoon searching for fabrics among the rolls and rolls available in Paris’ Marché St Pierre. One of the largest fabric stores in the specialist area of the city, you can find everything from the finest silks, brocade and French lace to leathers, feathers & even your low end costume fabrics. Hoops, buttons, ribbons & threads and EVERYTHING else are all available within a short distance in the many haberdasheries & sewing specialists which line the block. One shop keeper will happily direct you next door, to another, if they do not stock your item and many will discount end of roll fabrics or add an extra couple of inches to your purchase just to be nice.
The Paris sewing and craft community is fairly tight knit, giving that all the main stores are based within a couple of hundred meters of each-other. Shop keepers will remember a face when they see a regular & will go out of their way to find you a suitable product in their stock room or offer advice, you can even get Text message updates on special offers from many of the little boutiques :)
Its a part of Paris well worth visiting, if you are the creative sort, its a feast for the senses with an abundance of colours and textures, With so much choice, a designer can easily while away the hours just browsing for that perfect fabric or detail without knowing that 4 hours have passed & you’d better get back to the studio!
xoxo LLM