A textile industry for the River Valley?  Opportunities are many

There's sew much potential in Rumford.  That is, the textile industry is a flexible, relatively low-entry cost business that can be started at almost any scale - from one person at home with a sewing machine to a shop with hundreds of sewers.  Equipment - sewing machines, monograph machines, sergers - is easy to find and does not require great skill or training to use. Demand for the product is constant and  the minimal skills required mean that a textile project can absorb the unemployed and the less educated more easily than other businesses.  Textile work could be a natural addition to the River Valley economy.

Currently, textile activity here is at the home crafting stage, with a small number of people occasionally selling work they make at home. Quilting is especially popular, thanks in part to the fact that the only textile-related training in the River Valley is a quilting course taught at Mountain Valley High School.The school has a dozen sewing machines, and instructor Renee Thompson teaches 30 to 40 students a semester how to use the machines to make Queen size quilts.  (One effect of this is that one of the nearest fabric stores, JoAnn Fabrics in Auburn, finds most of the customers that come from Rumford are looking for quilting supplies, according to merchandizing manager Sharrie Downing.)

Could the training at the high school be expanded to other uses of the machines, making clothing, for instance, and perhaps be extended to the unemployed or other non-students? Apparently not at this time.  Thompson discourages the idea, noting that the school is reluctant to let outsiders use the machines, and that she lacks the time to teach courses other than quilting.  Another site with machines and a different instructor are needed.

If no other site, there is at least one other qualified instructor.  Seamstress/tailor Carol Violette, who provides tailoring and alterations at Carlisle's Apparel and Footwear on Congress Street in Rumford, says she would be interested should an entrepreneur need an instructor for a new shop. Violette is self-trained but can do anything from alterations to making a suit from scratch.  "It started with my grandmother," she says.  "My mother made all my clothes and I've just always done it myself."

It's one thing to sew something, another to sew something that sells.  But the market for
custom made fabric goods is strong.  One steady aspect of it, according to Downing of JoAnn Fabrics,
are seasonal projects such as prom dresses and wedding dresses. Beyond the continuing demand for those, there are a number of sewing products with a ready market, from tote bags, knitwear hats and scarves, canvas cushions for outdoor and boats, custom upholstery, animal clothes for dogs and cats, or unique pillow cases and bedding materials from antique fabrics.  One big market to come is in re-useable shopping bags as pressure grows on stores to stop using plastic bags.  (One site dedicated to re-useable bags is http://www.reusablebags.com ) In Rumford, a textile enterprise could take at least one of three forms:

• a home business for one person
  
• a contractor or consolidator who would coordinate several people working at home in order
  to produce a larger number of a specific item
  
• an actual textile factory, with a rented premises and numerous sewing machines to turn out industrial-scale quantities.

The three options:

Home sewer For the home sewer working alone, there are two basic categories: custom sewing and custom designer.  With custom sewing, the task is to sew garments for individual clients. A custom designer, on the other hand, uses original designs, rather than patterns.  For both the custom designer and custom clothier there are numerous areas of specialization: formal wear, children’s clothing, men’s wear, dance wear, costumes, choir robes, women’s wear, intimate apparel, plus-sized clothing, sewing for handicapped individuals, and more. What kind of income is possible from home sewing? For alterations, fees may be anywhere from $5-$30 per garment. Specialized costumes can sell for up to $1,000. Evening gowns can start at $200 and wedding gowns can sell as much as $5,000 but children's clothes may sell from $10-$50. Some estimates are that home sewers can expect to earn $20,000 to $35,000 per year. An experienced seamstress with a solid client base can earn as much as $60,000. You can exceed this range if you hire employees to do the work while you’re out marketing your business.

Consolidator/contractor For the contractor/consolidator, the point would be to reduce overhead while still turning out goods in volume.  By working with home sewers, the contractor would avoid having to buy equipment, paying withholding taxes and possibly even avoid having to rent premises, although some storage would be needed if hundreds of items were being made.  If the contractor had a list of a dozen reliable home sewers, he or she could in fact produce hundreds of units, either of a product custom made for a client - (say, for instance, lobster pillows for LL Bean), or produce their own product (perhaps pillows in the shape of the map of Rumford).  They would, of course, have to find buyers for their own products.  In either case, the contractor would probably have to buy and supply the fabric and patterns for the home sewers, then pay them by the piece, a fixed amount, for each one they completed.  They would be independent contractors and many expensive and difficult aspects of having employees would be avoided. There would be a slight risk in wasted  fabric if some sewers weren't that skilled, but the contractor would eventually come to rely more on the better sewers and thus reduce delays and wastage.

Textile factory The third option would be to set up a shop, buy dozens of sewing machines and hire people to run them.  This would be the most expensive option, and might be profitable only if an entrepreneur had a contract in hand in advance for a very large volume of goods. What might work best in Rumford would be to combine elements of home sewing, contractor, factory and fabric shop all in one. The closest full service fabric stores are in Farmington, Oxford and Auburn.There is some discussion that Wal Mart may reduce its fabric department,thus creating an opening for an independent fabric store.To compensate for possible lower volume and slower sales, a fabric store in Rumford could branch out to include a number of public sewing machines.  In addition to selling fabrics, the store could offer classes, perhaps getting a training grant to train the unemployed in textile work.  Further, the store could rent time on the machines to those who did not have their own.  And, the store could be a production facility, making a product using the contractor model of buying the completed pieces from home sewers. The home sewers, if they didn't have their own machines, could use the ones in the store.

More information about Sewing as a Home Business:

    * Home Sewing Association http://www.sewing.org 
    * American Sewing Guild http://www.asg.org  
    * Professional Association of Custom Clothiers, http://www.paccprofessionals.org
    * The Applique Society, http://www.theappliquesociety.org 
    * Smocking Arts Guild, http://www.smocking.org  

Want help researching a potential sewing or textile business?  Contact us at info@growrumford.com

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