We are SEW excited to announce the launch of our new website!
We opened FABRIC in 2016 because we wanted to make apparel manufacturing more accessible and less challenging for apparel entrepreneurs. After experiencing innumerable unforeseen obstacles, wasted money, and frustration as designers, we stopped hoping there was a better way to manufacture garments and created it instead.
When we gained use of the former City of Tempe Performing Arts Center it was the luckiest day of our lives and the first day of the most challenging, yet rewarding, four years we have ever had. Our unique public-social-cooperative-enterprise model enabled us to offer no-minimum manufacturing, design services, events, classes, a directory, offices, and everything a brand would need under one roof through a unique collaborative model. Four years in, 600 apparel brands served, and over three million dollars given back to the community, we could have never anticipated that 2020 would bring even bigger challenges than ever.
As COVID-19 ravaged the world, we rolled up our sleeves and added PPE manufacturing to the list of FABRIC services. While most of the world quarantined safely at home, we worked overtime, transformed our fashion runway into a temporary PPE factory, and manufactured over 500K reusable isolation gowns for our healthcare heroes, ultimately keeping 50 million disposable gowns out of the landfills. This achievement has ignited a fire within our growing team of industry experts to move our mission forward in an even bigger and better way.
With a greater sense of purpose, we simplified our unique model into one non-profit entity called FABRIC Tempe and created a revolutionary, digital, apparel entrepreneur “roadmap”. This roadmap is part of our Apparel Entrepreneur Membership and guides brand owners through design development, manufacturing, business startup, branding, marketing, and fashion show production. It includes hundreds of valuable resources like downloadable documents, forms, contracts, templates, how-to videos, classes, tips, notes, and guidance. It’s like having a Technical Designer, Production Manager, Quality Controller, Business Coach, Branding Expert, Marketing Manager, and Fashion Show Producer on staff, providing guidance. It saves brands tens of thousands of dollars, and as the signature program of our new non-profit, FABRIC Tempe is awarding hundreds of scholarships to minority and underserved entrepreneurs.
We aim to build upon our foundation in a way that establishes Arizona as a modern fashion industry capital by creating a tech based, sustainable, closed loop ecosystem that attracts and supports direct-to-consumer apparel brands. We invite you to join our efforts and our community.
And stay tuned as we roll out more amazing features of the new website in the coming months!
***ALREADY DEVELOPING OR MANUFACTURING WITH US? You should have already received an email from info@fabricincubator.com with the subject "You are a valued member of our FABRIC family..." If you haven't, check your SPAM folder. If it's not there, let us know.
Angela & Sherri