by And US cities like Detroit and St. Louis is building an ecosystem for local production, a contingent in Baltimore is quietly laying the groundwork to strengthen the needle trade industry.
In Baltimore, the aim is to revitalize the city’s needle trade and promote design innovation as well as area businesses through Sew Bromo, an organization started in 2021 by veteran fashion executive Stacy Stube. She also serves as founder and president of the Fashion Innovation Hub. In August, the hub welcomed Buyback Baltimore’s Needle Trades, an initiative that uses existing sewing machines to support future generations, to an 8,300-square-foot space. That same month, Sew Bromo established the Fashion Heritage Needlepoint Foundation to pass the knowledge of industry veterans to the next generation of Baltimore-based fashion entrepreneurs.
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After working in the United States and abroad for Burberry, Alexander McQueen, Hugo Boss, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, Club Monaco and other brands, Stube moved back to her hometown in 2016 and worked he for one of the last needle trade factories in Baltimore, Fashions Unlimited , as a leader of innovation. She moved on three years later as management was not interested in working with start-ups. Eager to work with startups in the area, solving prototype development and providing them with other industry skills, she decided to take action.
In the beginning of the city’s needle trade in the 1970s, there were 22,000 seamstresses and sewing machine operators located on one city block compared to 30 or 40 workers today. There were about 26,380 sewing machine operators in the entire US as of 2022, according to the US Department of Labor. People don’t realize that when a long-time needle trading factory owner dies, that operation usually closes because there are often no succession plans in place, Stube said. That reduced base is a disservice to the fashion industry, as it limits options for new talent to develop prototypes or small-batch production runs.
Stube is racing to get things done even though she has been campaigning to fund the industry for more than five years. After she completed an 8-day, 200-mile solo run in the dead of winter to honor the city’s needle trade history, “all these industry veterans came out of the woodwork.” While most had left the industry and/or changed careers, a small number had continued to sew and took them out of their garages and other rooms to create a new community of businesses. newly established under the advice of Stube. Seasonal needle trade workers are teaming up with newcomers to share their skills and expertise.
As a result, a 3,000-square-foot space in an abandoned factory has become a 20,000-square-foot facility that houses needle trade veterans, entrepreneurs and nonprofits. “That floor is just humming and singing. It’s such a joy to walk through,” Stube said. The Fashion Innovation Hub now has an additional 8,300 square feet of space on the building’s sixth floor to develop prototypes, launch early-stage businesses and develop soft goods innovation.
Baltimore’s Needle Trade Buyback campaign will end this summer with a memorable sporting event. Stube is also training for the “Bali to Baltimore Run,” which will cover 333 miles over 10 days, with another Baltimore entrepreneur, Nicole Myrick, co-founder of the Truuce bedding company. They will be going the distance with Indonesia’s longest distance runner, Valentine Lily. The name of the run is a nod to the one Stube and Lily did in 2016 that covered the perimeter of Bali, where Stube was working at the time. They are aiming to surpass the $100,000 fundraising goal for the Baltimore Needle Trade Buyback campaign. The three women will be running in clothing from the Fashion Innovation Hub.
“As we know, Under Armor is headquartered here, but very little of their work is produced here. this [run] It is really meant to activate the current community to see that many of the garments they are wearing [are not made in the U.S.] We want people to make the tags inside out to see on the labels, where they are made. That’s where you’re investing your dollars,” Stube said.
Under Armor has the UA Lighthouse Design and Manufacturing Leadership Center, a state-of-the-art 35,000-square-foot facility to help with larger production runs, but the Fashion Innovation Hub focuses on startups looking to build their companies. and keep their manufacturing rooted in Baltimore.
Funds from the campaign were and will continue to be used for equipment in the innovation space for the benefit of participants such as Girl in Space Club and Truuce. Another local brand, WhitePaws RunMitts, a running glove company started by Susan Clayton that is distributed in REI and other stores, will soon be rolling out a children’s version of the local needlecraft campaign by developing the prototypes locally.
Aware of the potential for other cities to create route-oriented infrastructure, Stube is willing to share information. Stube said she has shared notes with UK-based organization Fashion Enter, which wants to retain needlework skills, as it did by absorbing the 75 machinists from the Laura Ashley factory in Wales. While Stube is focused on entrepreneurs who are little known in early launches, Fashion Enter works directly with more established forces in the industry.
“Baltimore is the capital for impact-driven needlecraft,” said Stube, who wants to attract more prototyping, pre-sales and testing to the local market. “In the fashion industry, so many ventures never get off the ground, because they can never get prototypes,” she said. “Traditional factory workers work on the same thing day in and day out so they become fast. But they don’t think about the whole product being made. That’s why you need innovation pliers. If we can build this in Baltimore, it will be a cost saver for people who won’t have to travel to Asia to do this.”
The Baltimore-centric infrastructure is ideal for DTC brands in that it “removes some of the exploitative elements in an industry that wants to save money by making overseas. If you’re selling DTC and trying to invest in local communities, you may not need that cost savings,” Stube said.
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