The one great store that fuels textile dreams is closing due to small-business struggles
Judging by the early deluge of reactions on Reddit last week, we Vancouver makers are stunned to learn that our mecca for material and more is selling off its inventory and properties and closing for good. And I’m dealing with it like the full-grown woman I am.
Judging by the early deluge of reactions on Reddit last week, we Vancouver makers are stunned to learn that our mecca for material and more is selling off its inventory and properties and closing for good. And I’m dealing with it like the full-grown woman I am.
Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!
Vancouver has never had the big shmata (cloth trade) districts like Montreal or Toronto. In these parts, we have Dressew Supply, a sort of rough-around-the-edges department store almost bursting with bolts of liquidation fabrics, sparkly applique patches, headbanger wigs, thousands of buttons, zippers, feather boas, skeins of yarn, rolls of ribbon and every sewing notion imaginable to satisfy the city’s crafty counter-culture vibe.
Vancouver never had the garment district of Toronto, where “Uniform Measure/Stack" (1997), designed by Stephen Cruise (stephencruise.ca), monumentalizes objects of the trade, originally with painted path of yellow measuring tape.
I am with my people here: the grandmothers who sew Christmas-gift pajamas, the goths, the quilters, the film and theatre set designers, the dance-gymnastics girls, the fashion-school students, and more recently, Pride paraders, Halloween costumers and cosplayers. Moving through those jammed aisles of colour and pattern revitalizes the brain, especially in our soggy, dark mid-winters.
I have a long history of ruining homemade garments made from my purchases at Dressew. I blame this on the tedious, mandatory Grade 8 girls’ sewing class designed to turn us into skilled workers or housewives. So when my community-college-student budget demanded I make my own nightclubbing “look” and wedding-guest frocks, I took an improv approach, using the cheapest $2/yard “100% unknown fibers” fabrics that smelled as flammable as they looked. I was lured by the big books of “Make it tonight!” Butterick, Style and Simplicity patterns and when this timeline proved unlikely, I’d game the instructions by swapping, say, a long back zipper with self-adhesive Velcro, or cramming in some thick shoulder pads to try to give shape to my latest sagging acetate atrocity. I don’t have photographic evidence of the voluminous emerald taffeta dress with the watermelon-sized sleeves that I wore to a cousin’s wedding but I can see in the snapshot of the baby-blue Cinderella-style dress at another wedding that I didn’t see ‘fit’ as an area of concern.
Nevertheless I persisted! I dreamed big, undeterred by minimal skill and patience or my wonky sewing machine that I dropped on the floor more than once. These projects were doomed to fail, like the grey pin-striped double-breasted suit for my university boyfriend who actually wore the blazer for a while but who was also likely relieved that the trousers never materialized. And I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to all those unwilling children in my life who endured the double humiliation of being gifted one of my hand-sewn polar-fleece hats and posing for a photo in it for their mother’s thank-you note.
I have a long history of ruining homemade garments made from my purchases at Dressew. I blame this on the tedious, mandatory Grade 8 girls’ sewing class designed to turn us into skilled workers or housewives. So when my community-college-student budget demanded I make my own nightclubbing “look” and wedding-guest frocks, I took an improv approach, using the cheapest $2/yard “100% unknown fibers” fabrics that smelled as flammable as they looked. I was lured by the big books of “Make it tonight!” Butterick, Style and Simplicity patterns and when this timeline proved unlikely, I’d game the instructions by swapping, say, a long back zipper with self-adhesive Velcro, or cramming in some thick shoulder pads to try to give shape to my latest sagging acetate atrocity. I don’t have photographic evidence of the voluminous emerald taffeta dress with the watermelon-sized sleeves that I wore to a cousin’s wedding but I can see in the snapshot of the baby-blue Cinderella-style dress at another wedding that I didn’t see ‘fit’ as an area of concern.
Nevertheless I persisted! I dreamed big, undeterred by minimal skill and patience or my wonky sewing machine that I dropped on the floor more than once. These projects were doomed to fail, like the grey pin-striped double-breasted suit for my university boyfriend who actually wore the blazer for a while but who was also likely relieved that the trousers never materialized. And I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to all those unwilling children in my life who endured the double humiliation of being gifted one of my hand-sewn polar-fleece hats and posing for a photo in it for their mother’s thank-you note.
Evidence of ill-fitting, over-padded and plain cruel past projects.
The magic of that store is in the endless possibilities and I always left with hope in my heart that this time I will read the directions. I will take breaks. I will use pins. I will find scissors that don’t chew the fabric. I will not view interfacing as optional.
I eventually redeemed myself as the family-and-friends’ Halloween costume-maker, taking the bus downtown with one kid or another while conferring over their concept drawing that I assigned to weed out the uncommitted. They also had to help cut, sew, glue and paint as required, so I wouldn’t take all the blame for shoddy workmanship.
I eventually redeemed myself as the family-and-friends’ Halloween costume-maker, taking the bus downtown with one kid or another while conferring over their concept drawing that I assigned to weed out the uncommitted. They also had to help cut, sew, glue and paint as required, so I wouldn’t take all the blame for shoddy workmanship.
Learning to sew is more fun when it’s a costume.
I also got pretty good at reupholstering because I had the good sense to take some continuing-ed classes on the subject as a young adult (rather than a self-conscious, hormonal 13-year-old) led by a retired skilled professional. Still on a tight budget, I learned to revamp found vintage armchairs with Dressew’s bargain upholstery fabrics but moved over to making crib quilts for all the new babies. Eventually I got serious about fibre art and went to art school. When the pandemic lockdown hit I re-focused my plans for my stash of quilting cotton and sewed up three-layer cotton masks — so many masks — to fill the early gap in the supply chain. Elastic was a scarce commodity and that’s where the owner at Dressew stepped up, delivering yardage of elastic to me from the shuttered store’s back alley door, like a dealer doing a drop.
So many Covid masks, made possible during lockdown by Dressew.
The imminent demise leaves me — us — in the lurch. Shopping by the hand-feel (and smell) of fabrics, yarn, fun fur, trims, felt, wigs, and all the strange liquidation items is an in-person experience in the energizing milieu of other creatives. So now what? Will next year’s Halloween costume missions now take place around the ol’ iPhone peering at fabric images on Amazon, not really knowing what will show up as we hit ‘Add to cart’?
That’s a hard no. Sorry kids.
That’s a hard no. Sorry kids.
