PGF Insider Stories

Pearl Work Fabric Wholesale: The Coating Decides What You Are Buying

A boutique owner brought me a returned kurta last winter. The pearls were still attached, every one of them. They had simply stopped being pearls. What was left were dull grey-white balls with a ...

Bead Work Fabric Wholesale: Grade the Bead Before You Grade the Cloth

Most buyers who come to a bead work counter know how to read embroidery. They check stitch density, they check the ground, they check where the design repeats. Then they buy a roll whose beads wi...

Dyeable Embroidery Fabric Wholesale: What Happens at the Dye House

The cloth on the counter is cream, stiff plus faintly smells of starch. Nothing about it looks like what you are going to sell. That is the point of buying dyeable, plus it is also the trap. Ever...

Heavy Border Fabric Wholesale: Why Repeat Length Sets Your Real Cost

Two suppliers quote you the same border design at Rs 900 a metre. One of them is thirty percent more expensive than the other and the quotation will never tell you which. That gap has nothing to ...

Thread Work Fabric Wholesale: Reading Stitch Quality Before You Book

Most embroidery arguments in this trade are about whether something will stay on. Will the stone hold. Will the sequin lift. Will the mirror pop out after a wash. Thread work removes that whole c...

Zari Work Fabric Wholesale: How to Grade Metal Before You Book

Every other embroidery on your rack is a stitch, a stone or a sequin. You judge it by how well it is held down. Zari is the odd one out. What sits on that cloth is metal, or something pretending ...

Ribbon Work Fabric Wholesale: What Bulk Buyers Should Check

Most surface work adds something that was never cloth. A sequin is a punched disc. Katdana is a plated bead. A mirror is moulded acrylic. Thread is a filament. Even applique, which does add fabri...

Patch Work Fabric Wholesale: What Bulk Buyers Should Check

On almost every other cloth in your godown, a seam is something your tailor puts in later. You buy a whole fabric and the stitching starts in the cutting room. Patch work is the one category wher...

Applique Fabric Wholesale: What Bulk Buyers Should Check

Sequins are plastic. Katdana is metal-plated bead. Mirror discs are moulded acrylic. Thread is thread. In every one of those categories the decoration is a material that has nothing in common wit...

Fancy Lace Wholesale: A Trim Buyer's Reference Guide

Everything else on a fabric counter is sold by area. You buy a thaan, you get a width plus a length, you work out how many panels it yields. Lace breaks that habit completely. Lace is sold by run...