Let’s be blunt. Fabric shopping in Paris is very expensive.
Count your lucky stars if you live in Portland. There you can get quality fabric at good prices at so many stores: PFI Supply, Mill End, Josephine’s, Bolt, Whole 9 Yards. By the end of our stay in Paris, we were begging for a JoAnn’s. I kid you not.
When I was there studying at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts, we were given a list of stores where we could buy class supplies. Here’s a rundown. One note: Go in mid-January to mid-February or July when French shops are legally allowed to sell items for less than cost and use the word ‘Sale’ or ‘Soldes’ in their windows and ads. Expect long lines.
Marche St. Pierre is in Montmartre district right below Sacre Couer, 18th arrondissement.
Marche St. Pierre is the main drag for fabric. Its looks much like the fabric district in Los Angeles: Sidewalks lined with polyester.
Rue d’Orsel, the main street through the fabric district of Marche St. Pierre.
Two high points: Tissus Reine, a full line of products and quality, though not all of the notions we have here. Tissus Paris, a good variety of silks, though overpriced. For example, a meter of silk habotai (called “pongee” here) sells for 23 euros or $26 versus $18 a yard in the U.S. And that’s on sale.
La Reine, our most-visited fabric store. Solde=Sale
Paris Tissus right below Sacre Couer. Tissus=Fabric. A good place for silk.
Two lesser points: Dreyfus with its five floors of so-so fabric. Maison Blanc where they sell remnants (“coupons” here), 3 meters for 16 euros a meter.
Dreyfus. Big store. Boring fabric at high prices.
Bourse-Sentier business district next to Les Halles shopping center, 2nd arrondissement.
There are smaller stores in the Sentier near the Bourse, Paris’ equivalent of Wall Street. These are supposed to be wholesale, but don’t have wholesale prices. Here we found hat supplies at Ultramod, knitting and embroidering supplies at Le Drogerie and ribbons at Mokuba.
Ultramod hat supplies and trims.
Hidden gems in Passy, 16th arrondisement and Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, 8th arrondisement.
To get the best fabrics, we had to go to Tissus Edre in Passy. Here, I bought two meters of Chanel wool at about 55 euros a meter from the lovely Sophie. We also went to Janssens & Janssens near Rue du Faubourg St. Honore where I bought Chantilly lace for a mother of the groom dress for 95 euros a meter.
Tissus Edre in Passy and its proprietress, Sophie — a special place.
Janssens on rue D’Anjou near the Faubourg when you absolutely must spend a boatload of $$$.
Designers who live in Paris have relationships and can buy from wholesale companies not open to retail customers like us as students. Some of these fabric are milled in Italy. But most are made in China or India, as are most fabrics worldwide today.
But it’s Paris. Why do you need a fabric budget when you are here, in the city of light and fashion?
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