The know-how of French fabric 🇫🇷: Where do we still produce fabric in France?

Does France still produce fabric? The history of the know-how of the French fabric

France is the emblem of fashion worldwide. However, if the creations remain French, the origin of its fabrics is less so. Indeed, competition from Asia has jeopardized the textile industry of our country whose excellence participated in our fame.

Fortunately, for a few years, the trend has reversed to put in the spotlight The know-how of the French fabric.

French textile workers guarantors of our traditions

The French fashion, these are original products, of high quality, with exceptional designs. In order for the finished product to reach perfection, our designers require exemplary raw materials. However, French textile workers constitute the guarantors of our craft traditions which give birth to unique fabrics in the world.

The shock of relocation before returning to made in France

Despite its talent, the craft of French fabric suffered from relocation to Asia, from the 1960s and 70s. These countries offer products at unbeatable costs, but in return for much lower quality.

This is how our ancestral know-how found themselves at risk. INSEE figures tell us that France has lost more than half of its production, 40% of its turnover and 66% of its employees between 1996 and 2015.

Fortunately, visionaries have done everything to preserve our know-how, suspecting that relocation would soon overcome the fashion for relocation. Indeed, consumers have started to get tired of the poor quality of Asian productions and have realized that preserving jobs in France is essential for the future of our country.

In addition, ecological concerns argue in favor of local production. The economy of second hand explodes, thanks to applications and shops (online or physical) that offer used clothes.

This requires good quality fabric And that is sustainable, which is not the case with the first prices made on the other side of the world.

The revival of French textile companies

The manufacture of a garment involves several crafts: weaving, knitting, leather goods, making, spinning, etc. Our workers have a heritage transmitted from one generation to another, from master to apprentice, who guarantees the quality of the French fabric.

In recent years, bold business leaders have been betting on our unique know-how and have been working on the relocation of fabric manufacturing.

Their production offers all the guarantees of quality to the consumer, as well as the guarantee of the preservation of the environment.

Historical regions of French fabric

For centuries, the fabric know-how has been particularly well established in the Vosges, Alsace, North, Auvergne-Rhône Alpes and Champagne-Ardenne. The recent revival of the textile industry undeniably benefits these regions.

The Vosges and the fabric for household linen

The Vosges specialized in the manufacture of household linen from the Middle Ages, with a transformation to the cotton industry in the 1700s. The weavers had passed masters of the work of hemp, flax and wool, with whom They made body linen, tablecloths and towels.

The Vosges textile sector employed more than 40,000 workers in the 1930s. The region was the first French cotton department and provided more than half of national production.

Alsace and its spinning

Alsatian spinning factories have specialized over the centuries in textile dyes and impressions. They participated in the progress of printing techniques, first mechanical, then chemical.

Until 1975, the textile industry was the first employer in the region. Today it takes up colors and hires are going upwards.

The North and his famous lace

The north is renowned for the finesse of its lace. Roubaix was even nicknamed at the beginning of the XX^e century the French textile capital. She also distinguished herself in the realization of the patterns Jacquard (Even if the loom was invented by Lyonnais Joseph-Marie Jacquard in 1801).

Auvergne Rhône Alpes and the mesh

The canuts who worked the silk emerged in the region from the XVII^e century. On the other hand, the work of the mesh used for clothing and accessories, as well as the hosiery, remains here in the heart of many textile industries.

Ardennes champagne and knitting

Champagne Ardennes is the other stronghold of hosiery and knitting mesh in general, with Troyes as capital. The golden age of the region was the 1930s, while 40,000 workers worked for the textile sector.

Thanks to his know-how and his guards, French fabric is guaranteed to have a bright future ahead of him!

Make on the quality and sustainability of our fabrics

Today, it seems essential to us to think sustainable in our consumption processes.

Thus, we believe that when a seamstress or a seamstress buys a fabric, it must be able to last for many years.

Sewing a garment is an activity that takes time and through which we can both take care of our finishes and continue the ancestral know-how of sewing (even if he has modernized over time! :) ))

To allow you to sew a lasting wardrobe, we put on the fabric market from the end of collections of fashion houses.

We are, in a way, your agents of Textile upcycling ! We give you access to these surplus of high quality materials and you revalue them with the help of your sewing skills!

Find our 3 -meter coupons from the collection ends of the most beautiful fashion houses right here !