A BIT ABOUT US

Those of you who may not know our story we are a second generation British Textile Merchants. JJ Textiles Manchester was established in 2013 as an offshoot of our other company which was established in 1983. 

British Based Business established in 1983 in the wholesale selling of all kinds of textiles originally in the town center of Manchester what was then known as "Cottonopolis" amongst many fabric traders.

Our Speciality was buying Dead-stocks and Fabric Stock-lots from Mills and Warehouses across the U.K & Europe. During the late 1980s & early 1990s we were one of the largest fabric wholesalers in Europe. At the peak our stock level was in excess of 3 million metres.

Sadly with the Mass closure of fabric Mills, Wholesalers, Manufacturers & High Street retailers over the next decades also saw a rapid decline in the business. This was compounded by the complete loss of our Main warehouse and its irreplaceable stock due to a fire.

The second Generation of the family entered the business in the mid 2000s, and working through two smaller warehouses spent 2-3 years clearing all the older stocks via our existing wholesale network. Our original online store opened in 2009 and the focus became luxury deadstocks, cancelled orders and end of season fabrics from both British & Italian Mills. We also bought and continue (albeit increasingly less frequently) to buy from larger importers across Europe who hold several million metres of stock and occasionally look to clear stocks to us.

We have noticed in the last decade or so a shift in how the bigger wholesaler/importers have operated. We have seen alot of the "Webshop" platforms have become incredibly popular with many firms stocking regular/core lines in basics. We have however seen very little in terms of differentiation in the fabrics and has impeded our ability to purchase dead stocks as essentially 90% or more of the stock with such firms never changes.

In light of this change we have revived our own bigger import deals from the far East which has primarily focused on overproduction orders from the same factories that produce for the big branded North American Craft Cotton market. The move has been significant as our bigger importation ceased in the late 1990s. It was unfortunate that the founding family member of the company passed away before being able to see this come to fruition again.


Due to the intermittent nature of such fabric buying we also produce on a regular basis our own range of 100% Printed Cotton fabrics from the same factories and in the same quality as the big North American Craft firms.

Another new Milestone has occurred in 2022 in that we have for the first time entered Bespoke Tweed production. Our relationship with the Yorkshire Wool Merchants & Mills has gone from strength to strength in recent years and we noticed in particular our tweed sales have performed well. We did notice particularly online that by stocking the Mill's Stock Supported tweeds that we were selling the same Tweed fabrics as our competitors and felt things were becoming saturated with the same designs. Instead we plan to phase out those tweeds and produce a range of our own bespoke 100% Wool Tweed fabrics each year.



We are also very Proud to be a member of the Cloth Merchant Collective, which is an informal association of like minded Cloth Merchants which also includes our former sister company based in the U.K. Our informal group includes members who are located in various aspects of the Textile Industry, and our strong links via this collective allows us to hold a number of high quality fabrics exclusively.

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