A couple of weeks ago, my new friend Megan and I made a trek up to Britex Fabrics just off of Market Street near Union Square in downtown San Francisco!
Britex is a massive place - four stories chalk full of fabrics and notions. This store is what I envision when they shop for fabrics at Mood on Project Runway. In other words, it's a crazy huge store with an absolute enormous spectrum of fabrics to explore. They sell all types of fabrics for every project - from apparel fabric to quilting fabric to upholstery fabric. You want it, Britex probably has it.
A huge pantone of solids takes up the entire wall of the first floor - all the way up to the ceiling. The fancy silks and laces were fun to peruse on the main floor as well. Many of these fabrics were imported from Japan and India and the detailing was breathtaking.
It would take days to look through everything on the second floor. This is where the bulk of the apparel, home decor, and cotton fabrics are. Definitely keep an eye out for unique and beautiful cottons here, but don't forget to check the price tags before waltzing off to the cutting table ... Megan was eyeing a creamy white polka dot fabric that turned out to be $49.95/yard!!! But many of the others are very reasonably priced in the $10-$15 per yard range.
The third floor blew my mind a little bit. I haven't done many projects requiring lace or buttons or other notions, so this floor wasn't exactly my cup of tea. It was all abuzz, though, with buyers who did know what they wanted and were happily placing orders from the guys and gals working the floor. They did have all manner of antique and one-of-a-kind, hand-made buttons and pins and things, which we enjoyed glancing through before moving on to the slower-paced fourth floor.
You wouldn't believe the stash of remnants on the top floor of Britex. Basically any of the leftovers from the first two floors get measured, labeled and moved up to Floor Four for sale at a slightly discounted rate. I think Britex may see people who make it to the 4th floor as mildly desperate cases because it seems they sic their hard-core salespeople on top-floor patrons. We did manage to escape without buying something we'd have to take out second mortgages to pay for, but we could tell it was unusual for anyone to leave Britex empty-handed.
I somehow managed to not get any pictures of my own (probably because I was busy being in shock about one thing or another during our brief visit), but you definitely have to see it for yourself to understand the vastness of it anyway. If you're ever in San Francisco, I'd highly recommend a stop at Britex. My takeaway impression is that Britex has a good range of every type of fabric and notion, so if you're looking for something, Britex is probably the place to find it!
