Buying (Hunting) Fabric

I was out on a shopping spree today, the main objective was to get a range of fabrics in 4-5 colours which I could use for lining in my products. In the past I had been buying some small quantities as I was doing mostly samples, but the price difference between buying a few meters and a full roll is about 100%.

Checking the Quality

My fabric hunt had started a few days ago and I visited a few wholesale cloth markets of Old Delhi and tried to find out what is available where and at what price. Most of the bigger suppliers are not willing to sell anything less than 350-400 meters at a time. I asked a lot of local cloth traders as what will be the best course for me to take, some of them will pass you the information and some will just ignore your words, and you just have to move on.

Looking for Colours

Out of what all I learnt asking people some questions, I was able to figure out a few places I could visit and check them out for myself. One of the places on my list was a business in the eastern part of Delhi, that specializes in odd lots of fabrics that have been left behind after an order was fulfilled or a production run was completed. I was told that at the time of manufacturing an order or constructing garments typically 10% extra is manufactured or ordered. After the order has been fulfilled whatever extra is left behind comes to this shop and it is sold to small traders and businesses.

Looking (HUNTING) for More Colours

Though I am not very well versed with that side of the city but I was able to find my way to the place and it was a treasure trove of fabrics in various colours. The place was full of fabrics and they were all stacked right till the roof, and pulling out one roll from the stack was a big exercise in itself, rather than buying I'd call it hunting for the right fabric in a stack of 100's and 100's of rolls of fabric. I did select 6 colours but I had to leave two of them behind as I did not have enough money to buy all of them, I will be back in a few months.