Guide Book
First look at Britex’s new Post Street shop.
In December 2017, Britex Fabrics left its decades-long home at 146 Geary St. for a more modern spot just a block away at 117 Post St.
But the internationally renowned fabric seller, founded in 1952 by the late Martin and Lucy Spector, isn’t cutting ties with its rich history.
Even before shoppers step into the new 8,000-square-foot store, shoppers are greeted by commemorative window displays that showcase reprinted Britex advertisements that originally ran in The San Francisco Chronicle from 1960 to 1980.
“We decided to do these commemorative windows with archived ads to give it a little bit of the old with the new,” says Sharman Spector, Martin and Lucy’s daughter and the current owner. “That was the beginning of how we envisioned greeting people for the first time in our new space.”
Entering the spacious-feeling, airy and well-lit store, Britex’s loyal customer base of fashion students, tailors, designers, costumers and home sewers will find the first floor easy to navigate. Bursting with beautiful designer silks, wools, brocades and French laces, sourced from exclusive mills around the world, it’s an almost exact re-creation of the ground floor at the old location.
The highlight of the first floor remains the innumerable bolts of silks: chiffons, charmeuse, crepes and brocades in every conceivable color and pattern piled on tables throughout the room, and an eyepopping wool collection, stacked on specially engineered wall-mounted shelves as high as the eye can see.
To preserve the Wool Wall’s original rolling library ladders, which enable employees to retrieve woolen bolts from up high, Spector saw to it that a custom-designed, ceilingmounted support structure was added that worked with the existing track.
“It was really important to continue that really impressive display of wool,” Spector says. “That was the whole reason my father took (the previous) store. He said, ‘Lucy, we’re putting up a wool wall here.’ And that’s what started it all.”
Britex’s new Velvet Wall, a custom-made cube organizer shelf filled with little square velvet pillows in a variety of colors, enables customers to check out a sampling of the otherwise inaccessible buttery-textured fabrics before purchase.
What filled three upper floors at the old location: cottons, rayons, linens, synthetics and furnishing fabrics; notions, ribbons, buttons and trims; and remnants and structural fabrics, is now edited down and consolidated on the second floor. Discounted remnants no longer have a dedicated section but are placed next to like fabrics.
As the new store takes shape, Spector is excited by the opportunities to reimagine her long-standing landmark business.
“Some people might miss the look and feel of the old place, and I get it,” Spector says. “My roots are there, my heart’s there, but I think as things take shape, that this is a possibility to reinvent, reshape and modernize and not make it quite so stodgy. I think this is a wonderful improvement, actually.”
“Some people might miss the look and feel of the old place, and I get it.” Sharman Spector, Britex Fabrics owner