How it Evolved

R S Textiles was formed in 1963 by my father who started out his career as a sales agent for a high-class regular fabric wholesaler selling to manufacturers such as those who operated from out of the old lace market in Nottingham.

How it all came about was whilst he showed his customers this regular range, he noticed many roll-ends of cloth from last season building up under their cutting tables. For 3 days a week solid he would park his car and walk between customers collecting orders! He had over 100 accounts within the world-renowned ‘Nottingham Lace Market’ itself, all within 1/2 mile of each other. As a result, good stocks were relatively easy to find and close at hand, not like today when we have to travel far and wide….those were the days!

He would take these roll-ends home with him at night, and spend the evenings measuring and folding them onto boards by hand ready for re-sale, then load them in the boot of his estate car and sell them on to small retail customers the next day, at a snip of their original cost….so every one was a winner!

Over the years, his little business grew and grew, from a small garden shed, to a garage, to an outbuilding, to yet further outbuildings, and then in the 1980’s, he purchased his first premises near to the centre of Nottingham. Twenty years on, after his children had joined the company, we went on to build our own purpose-built premises in Ilkeston, where we currently operate from, and which is bursting at the seams with countless collections of beautiful fabrics which are sourced from all over the world, from high-quality mills and manufactures for the fashion designers and high street brands.

As one of our customer recently said “R S Textiles has by far the biggest range of quality stock fabrics in the UK”. We pride ourselves in being able to offer something for everyone, and quality at value for money. Another customer commented not so long back, “I just didn’t realise that there could possibly be that many shades of colours within a range of plain Jerseys”.

So, please get in touch and see for yourself. Seeing is believing. I’m sure you’ll be impressed with the range of stunning fabrics we have to offer!