Welcome to the TextileX resource guide—a growing effort created to map out and connect the vibrant textile community and resources in the Portland metro area and beyond. The foundation of this guide was built from the diversity of organizations that participate in the Portland TextileX Month festival every October.
Development of and funding for this guide have been provided by Textile Hive with additional funding from a RACC catalyst grant in 2019.
We encourage you to contribute additional resources through this form and consider becoming a member of TextileX to help further develop this resource guide as well as Portland TextileX Month.
Studios
Adam Arnold
Drawing inspiration from many sources, I have built a dedicated clientele. My skill and esteem as a designer and creator of clothing has garnered me collaborations with the Portland Art Museum, Contemporary Craft Museum, and Oregon Ballet Theater. My garments are known for their clean lines, tailored silhouettes, timeless appeal, and impeccable construction.
Location Details
1110 NW Flanders StreetSuite 204
Portland, Oregon 97209
Businesses
Altar
Altar is a clothing company and retail store with a brick-and-mortar location in Portland, OR. We initially opened a business in 2010 (under another name in the same retail location) with a focus on supporting independent artists from our immediate region, and by 2015 when we became Altar, we had grown that vision into the beautifully curated and ever-changing space it is today. We celebrate independent manufacturers and artists from across North America, with a focus on the stories that are woven into their work. We use the phrase, “objects with meaning” because we believe in sharing the unique stories behind these pieces.
Our clothing brand, Altar Houseline, is proudly made in America using deadstock materials and serves size gradations from size small to 6XL.
Cassie Ridgway opened her shop in 2010 with less than $3000 in the bank and a night job. Owning and operating this small business has been defined by labor of love and perseverance. Cassie's passion for sustainably produced and ethically manufactured apparel was a driving force, and has kept her laser focused on making this company better by the year. Her aesthetic sensibilities are always sort of changing (ok, sometimes all over the place), but she has always consistently been inspired by desert color-stories, moody floral motifs, art deco filigrees, and modern art.
Studios
Aradhita Parasrampuria
Aradhita Parasrampuria is a materials designer originally from India, based in New York. Parasrampuria combines synthetic biology with fashion to create sustainable, scalable textiles to replace toxic petroleum-based materials. She works primarily with raw materials such as Microalgae, Escherichia coli, and Cellulose. Parasrampuria received recognition on Indian Forbes 30 under 30 2023 list in the climate change category. She has also been awarded the Swarovski Foundation's "Creatives For Our Future" grant and the Aronson Fellowship from Tishman Environment and Design Center. Her work has been showcased in prominent events and publications such as United Nations, COP27, Vogue, L'officiel Brazil, CFDA, Dezeen, No-Kill Magazine, New York Design Week, and Portland Textile Month.
Businesses
Bolt Fabric Boutique
Bolt Fabric Boutique was founded in 2005 to serve our community with high quality, unique fabric and complimentary items that inspire creativity, regardless of your skill level. Since then, the shop has grown to serve both Portland locals and become a popular destination for tourists. We strive to ensure that Bolt is a truly unique experience—when you walk in the door, you will discover fabrics and other delights that you haven’t seen anywhere else.
Studios
Charlotte Flory
https://www.instagram.com/morepatternmorebetter/?hl=en
Charlotte Flory is an artist and design director living in Portland, Oregon. She comes by way of New York City, where she lived for 21 years after graduating from Parsons School of Design. Her fashion and home accessory designs sold in eponymous NYC shops such as Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman and ABC Carpet & Home, while a piece she designed for Louise Bourgeois hangs in MoMA, signed in red stitches “LB”. Her textile work has walked the runway for Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and more. Working for Master Printmakers to edition hand pulled etchings of Sean Scully and Phillip Pearlstein, and learning Letterpress Printing from the grandson of Alexander Calder, her true passion for approaching design as art has offered her a lifetime of fulfilling work. “More Pattern More Better” has been her moniker for some time now, and as a Decorative Expressionist, color, pattern and especially the mix of them, is her favorite way to amplify beauty and inspire joy. Please visit her Instagram page for more @charlotteflory
Businesses
Creative Capital Design
As founders of Creative Capital Design, we are, at our core, friends who know we are better together. Our success is largely a product of those who mentored, encouraged, and inspired us along the way. We continue to be buoyed up by the enthusiasm and energy, imagination and intelligence, of those around us. Now it’s our turn to share our knowledge and resources with the industry that has treated us so well. We developed Inside Fashion Design, a behind the scenes look into the world of apparel design. A site dedicated to first-year students, emerging designers and industry leaders alike. It’s a place to teach and to learn. A place to bring everyone into the conversation and celebrate what we all love to do.
Location Details
1231 NW Hoyt StreetSuite 304
Portland, Oregon 97209
Organizations
Esprit Heritage Archive
Los Angeles-based designer Michelle Koza accidentally accumulated the largest 80s ESPRIT archive. The archive includes everything from ESPRIT corporate collateral, garments, accessories, product catalogs, packaging, 35mm slides, photographs, audio, video, and various publications. ESPRIT Flashback was first established on Instagram in 2017, her passion project developed into a source of inspiration for brand enthusiasts and various creatives from around the world. The mission of the archive has evolved from collecting & preserving to research & discovery – unearthing the soul of the archive.
Businesses
Focus Group Vintage
www.instagram.com/focusgroupshop
Focus Group is the place to get all your lightly used street wear and vintage!! We focus on the most current vintage styles. Located in the heart of SE Portland, in the famous Hawthorne shopping district. Friendly prices, friendly atmosphere, and friendly faces.
Studios
Fuchsia Lin
Fuchsia Lin is a Taiwanese-American artist, fashion/costume designer and filmmaker, called a visionary by the Seattle Times for the imaginative art and performance work she has produced. Fuchsia began her career as a fashion designer, studying at Parsons School of Design in NYC. Years later, Fuchsia turned to the medium of film to showcase her fashion and costume designs in motion. Her first short film, Crystals of Transformation, went on to win her a scholarship award to study fashion filmmaking at London College of Fashion, one of two universities in the world that teaches fashion filmmaking. Fuchsia is currently finishing up her second film, Future Cosmos Flow, a fantasy drama film. This film features more than 40 custom couture pieces made from sustainable materials Fuchsia designed especially for the film, worn and set in motion by award-winning performers. Future Cosmos Flow is a genre-bending film and magical fairy tale inspired by mythology and the natural elements. An exiled royal family must learn to harness a mystical water-power to subdue a tyrannical Uncle who threatens the ecological survival of their Kingdom. It relates to our modern day need for the renewed care of our environment. Fuchsia will speak about her journey from costume designer to filmmaker. She will share how she uses the medium of film to show fashion in motion and tell a story through textiles. And she’ll show excerpts from her new film, Future Cosmos Flow, which will be screened at a special event at the Portland Art Museum in 2024.
Businesses
Herbivore Clothing
Josh and Michelle started Herbivore in 2002 in the spare bedroom of our apartment in SE PDX. Why? Well, we wanted good looking clothes, ethically made, that would show the world we believed animals deserved respect, love, and to be free from harm. We wanted to spread the word about living cruelty-free.
We spent a few years in spare bedrooms in Portland, shipping our clothing all over the world before we took the leap to open our first little store. And by little, I mean one lap around without missing anything took about 40 seconds. We stocked our ever-expanding clothing line alongside an ever-expanding line of vegan cookbooks. We filled the rest of the store with cruelty-free belts, bags, and wallets.
Then, in 2007, we got together with Lisa, the founder of Sweetpea Baking Company, Chad and Emiko of Food Fight! Vegan Grocery, and Brian and John of Scapegoat Tattoo, and we moved down to SE 12th and Stark Streets. The Vegan Mini-Mall was born. It started as a joke, but the name stuck.
A lot has changed over the years, but the core belief and drive behind the vegan mini-mall hasn't. Basically, ethical veganism is awesome, you can be one, too! All while eating a donut with one hand, sipping a soy latte with the other, wearing ethically made, fashionable clothing as you wait for your tattoo appointment to begin in a shop that uses vegan ink and supplies.
As for Herbivore, we have spent all these years designing rad clothing, as well as manufacturing belts and wallets. We have hosted countless events, co-founded an animal rights conference, and spoken at vegfests. We've published some books. We've travelled the country tabling at events. We've donated our time at sanctuaries, and donated our skills to lots of organizations in the form of pro-bono design work. We have raised lots and lots of money for animal rights organizations and sanctuaries, as well as other social justice movements.
We believe these movements are linked and the oppression of one is the oppression of us all. We believe in animal liberation and human liberation are the same cause, so we fight for both.
Our approach has always been to show veganism as a positive choice that gives you back so much more than you give up. Compassion Is Invincible!
Businesses
Hidden Opulence Design House
Hidden Opulence is a Design House that’s focused in Apparel sustainability and upcycling. We enjoy serving both existing apparel brands and the general public. We feel pride especially serving those who identify as Queer, Non-Binary and/or BIPOC. It’s all about meeting you where you are at in your slow fashion and sustainable journey!
We are your one stop shop when it comes to refreshing or perfecting those cherished items in your wardrobe or from your home. Basic tailoring, mending and altering are a part of our core. Projects that have anything to do with heirloom refurbishing, repairing and re-configuring (garment or textile) touch our hearts. Unfortunately at this time, we do not provide pattern rendering or clothing concept development.
Studios
Hyun Jung Jung
Hyun Jung Jung is a Korean artist and designer currently based in Portland, Oregon with a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Hyun Jung’s artistic practice centers around creating interactive and immersive experiences for her audience, resulting in various outcomes across different forms and mediums. Inspired by personal experiences and Pop culture, she aims to capture the generation she lives in and create work that is relatable to people from different backgrounds and cultures. Hyun Jung plans to continue creating works that capture the generation that she lives, and to fuel meaningful dialogues.
Businesses
Inside Fashion Design
Inside Fashion Design shares behind the scenes look into the Apparel Industry. Created to support, inspire, educate, inform, connect and engage community.
Studios
Judilee Fitzhugh
Judilee Fitzhugh is a textile artisan who specializes in natural plant dyes and couture sewing. A tour of duty in Japan with the U.S. Navy led to a profound Japanese influence and a lifelong affection for indigo and plant fibers. She gained her Certificate in Craft at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2002, and taught in the BFA and Studio School programs until the school’s closure in 2019. Her finely crafted work combines natural objects with vintage fabric remnants, hand weaving, and surface design to portray a single moment in history.
Studios
Keeva Moselle
www.instagram.com/realmandreigndesignstudio
Growing up Keeva Moselle made all of her Halloween costumes from age nine on, repurposing items from around the house. Keeva learned to work with her hands and a myriad of materials and techniques to create wearable art. These skills eventually translated into fashion design and garment construction. Today Keeva is a Portland native artist creating large scale interactive art installations, immersive beauty experiences, costumes, and multimedia art. All of her endeavors primarily use post-consumer waste & salvage materials. Keeva is a graduate of Oregon State University Graduate School, where she studied socio-political ethics. Keeva is an environmentalist and a Black Feminist thinker and author; her art reflects that same powerfully dynamic voice. In 2011, Keeva created an original character “The Queen of Unicorns”, as a public persona to inspire imaginative play and give young girls, especially those of color, representation in the cosplay and festival community.
Businesses
MAOTA
With continuous support from local craftsmen MAOTA commits to a maintained visible production. We are based only a short distance to our weaving mills, yarn factories, dyeing mills and production factories in Japan, making possible frequent visits and keeping the production local and close to home. We use high quality yarns which are the base to unique textures, shapes and colors. Yarn is the beginning.
Businesses
Mujer Woo
Youkyung Kaycee Woo was born in South Korea, achieved a BFA diploma at Parsons School of Design as a fashion design student in New York. Also, Kaycee studied textile design at Central Saints Martin in London UK for almost one year. She has been working as a textile and fashion designer since she graduated in 2019. Besides, she opened her textile workshop in New York City. Currently, she is working on tufting art installations for exhibitions and several art projects in New York and South Korea. Also, she opens workshops for art and textile students who want to learn tufting techniques. MUJER WOO, Youkyung's fashion and home interior design brand, embraces time-honored techniques with her bold but feminine textile design and a modern sensibility to create unique and feminine pieces for all different ages of women. Indeed, MUJER WOO's priority is producing sustainable living products and tufting artwork. All the tufting works are hand-made and made with 100% New Zealand Tex wool. Also, the brand has sustainable and unique shapes of soap for a zero-waste living. The designer wants customers to be intelligent, confident, and love themselves through the contemporary feminine garment and sustainable products, consider the environment, and love other people.
Studios
Orquidia Violeta
Orquidia Violeta is a Salvadoran-American textile artist. Her art expands on traditional indigenous weaving with new techniques and current themes, using only salvaged materials and found objects. She incorporates sewing, embroidery and fiber-collage to tell stories about strong people transcending existential challenges. Her work shows how mythical heroines have found balance by following the guidance of the natural world.
cooperative embroidery fashion sculpture textile art wearable art
Businesses
Over & Over Style
Over & Over Style is the project of Barbara & Vivian, veterans of the Seattle apparel industry, with shared passions for textile artistry, history & travel, and the transformative power of clothing. In search of our next act, we came across a treasure trove of vintage kimonos (way too beautiful to be hidden away in moth balls) and decided to give them new life. The result, after hours upon countless hours of designing, deconstructing, washing, steaming, cutting & sewing, is a collection of unique home decor and one-of-a-kind garments in a dazzling array of patterns and colors.
Schools
Pacific Northwest College of Art Applied Craft + Design MFA Program
pnca.willamette.edu/academics/graduate/acd
Connecting design thinking to design doing, the MFA in Applied Craft + Design program is grounded in hands-on making, entrepreneurial strategies, and social and environmental engagement.
With a curriculum focused on the development of a strong artistic voice, the realization of work for a specific community or client, and entrepreneurism that connects making a living with making a difference, the MFA in Applied Craft and Design is the only graduate program of its kind.
Combining a mentor-based approach with an exceptional visiting artists program, students work one-on-one with nationally and internationally recognized designers, makers, and scholars in a self-directed curriculum that challenges them to bring to life the full strength of their ideas and skills.
Encouraging a cross-disciplinary studio environment in which the workshop is a lab to collaboratively explore design and making processes, the mentor-based MFA in Applied Craft and Design welcomes students from a wide range of creative backgrounds to make original work with an applied purpose.
Businesses
Parker Simonne Designs. Inc.
parker + simonne designs is a woman-owned small batch clothing line modernized kimonos, tops and tunics, inspired by my dreams.
Businesses
Pattern People
Pattern People is an industry leading print studio which offers seasonal trend guides, custom pattern design services, stock prints for immediate use, design tools, and educational ebooks for designers of all levels.
Businesses
Portland Apparel Lab
PAL is a member-based makerspace for sewn-goods. PAL is a design support team here to get you production-ready. PAL is a collaborative knowledge-sharing community that takes your skills to the next level.
Location Details
1120 SE Main StreetSuite 101
Portland, Oregon 97214
Schools
Portland Fashion Institute
www.portlandfashioninstitute.com
Portland Sewing started business in 2002 with a beginning sewing class for four students. The business grew to add classes in intermediate and advanced sewing. In 2010, Portland Sewing added classes on the business of apparel. In 2016, Oregon made it a licensed career school. Thus Portland Fashion Institute was created to offer three certificates and give people the skills to start businesses and get jobs at apparel companies. Yet PFI still offers classes to people who just to take one or two just for fun. We offer sewing classes for the beginner to the advanced stitcher wanting to learn something new, from sewing basics to patternmaking, draping, tailoring and couture. No matter the class, our job is to make sure you gain skills, create a project you like, build your confidence — and have a good time doing it!
Businesses
Portland Garment Factory (PGF)
www.portlandgarmentfactory.com
Portland Garment Factory is a full-service design and fabrication studio with expertise in soft-goods design + manufacturing, creative direction, and art fabrication + retail display + experiential marketing design. Led by PGF founder Britt Howard, the zero-waste studio has been upending the factory model for more than 10 years, as a leader in soft-goods innovation, design, and fabrication.
Schools
Portland State University Textile Arts Program
The Textile Arts program provides a critical investigation of clothing and textiles with a focus on craft, sustainability, and community engagement. Students learn techniques in weaving, surface design, and sewn construction towards fashion, costume, and contemporary art.
community fashion sewing sustainability textile art textile design textile history weaving
Businesses
Sustainable Fashion Forum
www.thesustainablefashionforum.com
Founded on the principals of discovery and education, the Sustainable Fashion Forum is a highly-curated, community-driven sustainable fashion conference held annually in Portland, Oregon. The SFF looks to the future by fostering honest, thought-provoking and in-depth conversations about the social and environmental effects fashion has on our world and what we can do individually and collectively to improve it.
Studios
That Year Forever
THAT YEAR is a creative studio and clothing label, developing products, events, design, direction and digital and physical media.