Time to Tour the World’s Largest Knitwear Resource

Stoll Fashion & Technology Knitting CenterI spend a lot of time roaming aimlessly around New York City.  I love stumbling from street to street (and avenue to avenue), people watching and exploring.  As so much of my life is immersed in the textile industry, I tend to perform this little ritual  in the Garment District. Because of this, I was lucky enough to come upon Stoll Fashion & Technology Knitting Center. I will be the first to admit that of the three textile design genres, knitting is the one in which I have the least knowledge.  So it was a good thing that my curiosity got the best of me and I went in. Upon entering the building I was greeted by racks of beautifully knitted garments and welcomed by the Stoll staff.  I introduced myself as someone with an interest in learning about and sharing various textile industry resources and was immediately given a tour of the place.

I learned that the center is a knitting professionals dream.  It’s two floors of knitting and finishing equipment, the world’s largest knitwear archive, a pattern library, fast tack sampling, and hand knitting courses.  I was also given a virtual tour of the online pattern database, a resource that seems too good to be true. If you’re a Stoll machine customer, you can actually download patterns and immediately start knitting your design.

Not sure what Fast Track sampling means?  Don’t feel bad, I didn’t either. Stoll keeps 7 of it’s high performance knitting machines as well as finishing equipment in house.  Yep, I said “in house”.  They cover all gauges for any kind of sampling inquiry and really help designers make decisions quickly and shorten the development process.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they actually offer a guided tour with a consultant.  So there’s no excuse, don’t be scared, give them a call , they love having guests.

Nicole Giordano

Nicole is the founder of StartUp FASHION, an online resource and community supporting for independent designers around the world with building their businesses. A deep love for the craft of fashion paired with an adamant belief that success is defined by the individual, led her to found StartUp FASHION, where she helps independent designers and makers screw the traditional fashion business rules, create their own paths, and build businesses they truly love. More than anything else, she’s in the business of encouragement and works every day to remind makers and designers that they have something special to offer the world and that they can, in fact, do this thing!

2 comments

Comments are closed.