Our Story
At the Fabric Store, we are simply lovers of fabric. We are a destination point for the sewing and creative community, offering a curated range of designer dress fabrics and mill overruns coupled with an exceptional in-store experience and dedicated, passionate service. Our aim is to provide an alternative option within a fast-fashion society where fine craft and high quality fabrics are often undervalued. We are huge supporters of home sewing, crafts and the #MeMade movement, and appreciate the time and care that goes into creating garments by hand. We believe that creative endeavours like home sewing and crafts can also have a profound impact on our well-being.
We're a New Zealand owned and operated business that began in 1995 as Global Fabrics with just a single store! We’ve grown organically into eight retail stores across New Zealand and Australia, as our customers have convinced us to expand. Our New Zealand stores have been embedded in the local sewing and creative community firmly since their inception and are located in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
We opened our first Australian store in Sydney in 2008, followed by stores in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. A personal connection and the local film industry led us to open a store in West Hollywood, LA in 2013 but soaring rental costs and the logistics of shipping across the world meant we sadly had to close that location in 2018. The LA store created a lot of international interest in our unique offering of fabrics – especially in our range of merino jersey, and once again we were convinced to expand into the online world, opening our international Online Store in 2016.
Our pattern brand Make by TFS was established in 2020, and evolved from our desire to encourage as many people as possible to sew their own clothing slowly, a natural extension of our sustainable and ethical business values and our design-driven philosophy.
Our Team + Workplace
Our Head Office and warehouse is located in Auckland, New Zealand and is the base for our distribution, online store and office teams. Our staff across our retail stores and head office are a friendly, knowledgeable and enthusiastic bunch, who have either studied fashion or been self-taught in the industry and we pride ourselves in being able to provide a high level of customer service because of this. Our teams are our most valuable resource, and we work hard to ensure their health, safety and wellbeing is a constant priority.
Many of our team members are avid home sewists themselves, and active participants in our social media channels and blog. We're often on the look out for new talent - if you're interested in joining the TFS team, check out our latest openings on our careers page by clicking the link below!
