The Missing Middle in American Woven Textile Manufacturing

“Made in America” sounds simple until a designer actually tries to make something in America.

A designer can have a beautiful idea, a strong point of view, and an audience that is ready to buy, but turning that vision into a finished textile product requires access to a manufacturing system that understands where they are in their journey.

For decades, the textile industry had room for brands at different stages of growth. A designer could begin with smaller production runs, develop a collection, build demand, and eventually grow into larger manufacturing relationships. The first order was not always expected to be the biggest order. There was an understanding that some customers were still becoming the brands they would eventually become.

Somewhere along the way, that pathway narrowed.

Today, much of American textile manufacturing is built around established companies and medium-sized brands with the volume, forecasting, and purchasing power needed to support larger production runs. Those customers are essential to the industry, but the shift toward efficiency and larger minimums has created a significant gap for the brands that are still growing.

This is the missing middle.

It is not simply about smaller quantities. It is about the absence of a manufacturing pathway for the next generation of textile and interior brands. And that opportunity is especially significant in woven textiles.

Prints Are Winning with This Model

The surface design world has experienced tremendous growth over the past decade. Thousands of designers are creating original artwork, building audiences, and developing brands around their creative point of view. Digital printing has made it easier than ever to bring those designs into the marketplace. A designer with the resources to invest in equipment or work with an accessible printing partner can now create custom printed textiles in quantities that would have been impossible in the past.

But prints and wovens are not the same.

For designers who want to enter the interiors market, woven textiles remain one of the most important categories. Woven fabrics, jacquards, blankets, upholstery textiles, and other woven products carry a level of texture, depth, and permanence that is central to high-end residential and commercial interiors. They are the products that become part of the spaces people live in.

They are also among the most difficult to access.

Creating woven textiles requires specialized equipment, technical knowledge, material expertise, and a production partner who understands how to move from creative concept to finished product. Unlike digital printing, it is not something most designers can simply bring in-house with a relatively accessible investment.

The barrier to entry is higher.

And that is exactly where the opportunity exists.

The Industry Has Overlooked an Entire Customer Segment

Traditional manufacturing has often evaluated customers through the lens of immediate volume. How many units will they order? How frequently will they reorder? Are they already established enough to justify the time and resources required to support them?

Those questions make sense within a large-scale manufacturing model.

But they overlook the way many modern design businesses are built.

Many of today’s most exciting brands do not begin with massive production commitments. They begin with a designer who has developed a unique perspective, an audience that values originality, and a vision for creating products that are different from what already exists.

They are not looking for a factory to produce thousands of units on day one. They are looking for a partner who can help them get there. And this is the opportunity that the industry is missing.

A small production run is often viewed as a limitation, but it is actually the beginning of a relationship. The first collection allows a designer to test the market, refine the product, understand customer demand, and build the foundation for future growth.

Wovens Require a Different Kind of Partnership

Moving from surface design into woven textiles requires more than simply transferring artwork onto a different material.

Woven products have their own language. The structure of the weave matters. The yarn selection matters. The scale of the design matters. The interaction between color, texture, and construction matters. A design that works beautifully as a print may need to be completely reimagined as a woven textile.

This is why access to woven manufacturing is not just a production issue. It is a development issue.

Emerging designers need partners who understand both the creative and technical sides of the process. They need someone who can help them navigate sampling, material decisions, production limitations, and the many small adjustments required to create a successful finished product.

Without that support, designers are left with two choices: remain at the print level, or attempt to jump directly into a manufacturing model designed for much larger brands.

Neither option serves the opportunity that exists.

There is a generation of designers ready to create woven products for interiors, but the infrastructure to support them has not kept pace with the growth of the design market.

The Proof Is Already There

The idea that small runs are not valuable has been challenged by companies that recognized the potential of serving emerging creators.

Spoonflower is one example of what happens when an industry looks at accessibility differently. Founded in 2008, Spoonflower built a business around allowing independent designers and customers to create custom fabric in very small quantities, including by the yard. Rather than viewing small orders as a problem, they built their model around the idea that thousands of small creative businesses represented a significant market opportunity. The company grew rapidly and was acquired by Shutterfly in 2021 in a deal reported at approximately $225 million.

The lesson is not that every textile manufacturer should become a print-on-demand platform. The lesson is that the market for smaller creative customers is real. The demand exists. And these customers are willing to pay 4 times what manufacturers can charge their larger clients. In many cases, by allowing a 50 yard minimum, they could get a larger profit from a smaller run than they would get in their current minimum.

You read that right. Let’s look at the math.

For example, imagine a mill has a 300-yard minimum. If their production cost is $5 per yard and they sell the fabric for $8.50 per yard, that order generates $1,050 in gross profit. Now imagine that same mill developed a small-run model for emerging brands. If they produced 50-yard minimums and charged a premium price that reflects the value of accessibility—say $32 per yard—the same 50 yards could generate $1,350 in gross profit. The order would be smaller, but the gross profit opportunity per production run would actually increase. 

Are you starting to see the advantage? 

The question is whether the manufacturing industry will recognize the opportunity before someone else does.

Reshoring Requires More Than Bringing Back Large Production

There is renewed interest in rebuilding American manufacturing, and that movement matters. A stronger domestic textile industry benefits designers, brands, consumers, and the broader creative economy.

But reshoring cannot only focus on bringing large-scale production back for companies that already have established supply chains.

It also needs to create entry points for the brands that are still becoming established.

The future customers of American textile manufacturing are not only the companies placing large orders today. They are the designers developing their first collections. They are the boutique brands building loyal audiences. They are the creative entrepreneurs who are creating the products that consumers will want tomorrow.

If there is no place for them to begin, the industry loses the opportunity to grow alongside them.

The missing middle is not a niche market.

It is the pipeline.

Building the Future of American Wovens

The future of American textile manufacturing will require a shift in how the industry views smaller brands and smaller production runs.

Small-batch woven manufacturing should not be viewed as an inconvenience before “real” production begins. It is often where innovation happens. It is where new designers enter the interiors market. It is where products are tested, refined, and developed into collections that can eventually grow.

At Kindly Woven, we believe the future of textiles depends on creating better pathways between creativity and production. Designers should not have to choose between making something at a handmade scale forever or waiting until they are large enough for traditional manufacturing. There should be a place in between where ideas can be developed, refined, and brought into the world.

That is the missing middle.

And it is where the future of American woven textiles will be built.

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