J Brown

J Brown Fabrics is a family run business, founded in 1982 by John and Eleanor Brown. John Brown had started his working life as a warehouse operative at the Rexmore fabric group in Glasgow.

The company calls itself a fabric converter rather than a mill: it designs and commissions cloth, then holds it. It works from a purpose-built warehouse in Yorkshire stocking more than two thousand fabrics, with next day delivery across the United Kingdom and weekly shipments to export customers. Its Enviro Fabric programme uses either recycled yarns or halogen-free flame retardants.

For a workshop, a converter that actually holds stock is worth a great deal. It means a fabric chosen on a Tuesday can be on the bench that week rather than in eight weeks, which is often the difference between a job running to plan and a customer waiting.

Every J Brown fabric in our library publishes a Martindale figure, a fire rating and an aftercare note, which is unusually complete. The one thing it does not print is the bolt width, so that is a number we take off the pattern book before we work out how many metres a piece needs.