Niche at Pearl is inviting shoppers to test their hand at sewing and fashion design with their latest project, The Stitch at Niche.
Opening Friday, Aug. 21, in a section of its flagship store at Pearl, The Stitch at Niche will offer specialty fabrics, unique buttons, trims and other items, many that have been specially sourced from its manufacturing partners. “We’ve worked with them to develop our own colors, prints and textures (over the last nearly 25 years), so there are fabrics that aren’t available anywhere else,” says Ayse Derman, creative director.
Ayse Derman says she and her mom, designer Nilgun Derman, found themselves trying crafts and hobbies they don’t typically make time for during COVID-19 and continued to hear from customers and friends that they were doing the same. While their store has reopened and has become a hub for cloth mask sales, they saw the pandemic as an opportunity to try something new by giving customers the opportunity to make their own pieces.
“We found ourselves cooking and baking and gardening and making things and that seems to be something that’s happening all over,” Ayse Derman says. “There’s just something peaceful and calming about creating something.”
Along with fabric, buttons, elastic, thread, zippers and other crafting necessities, the fabric shop will offer sewing patterns from the Niche collection, including simple items that beginners can tackle like headbands.
The headquarters for Niche—a fashion brand that distributes to stores around the world—is located just across the river from Pearl so Ayse Derman says they’ll be sharing fabrics from their large inventory and rotating in new colors and textures based on demand. Fabrics come from the U.S. as well as Italy, France, Turkey, Japan and elsewhere. Customers can expect to find silks, linens and linens blends in solids and digital prints, boiled wool, embroidered knit jersey and cotton shirting material as well as PFD fabrics, or prepared for dye fabrics that could be used for tie dying and other dye projects.
Eventually, Ayse Derman says they hope to host maker workshops and classes in the store with Nilgun Derman at the helm. For now, they’re working to release how-to videos that customers can follow to learn some sewing basics, including things like sewing on a button or mending a hole.
“It’s a revival of some hobbies and skills that maybe we haven’t paid much attention to in a decade or two,” Ayse Derman says. “That’s the silver lining of being at home.”
The Stitch at Niche
302 Pearl Pkwy., Ste. 112
Wednesdays-Saturdays, noon-4 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
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