LOS ANGELES, California — In spite of competition from the likes of F&S Fabrics and Diamond Foam in Los Angeles, Mood Designer Fabrics will expand its 12,000 square-foot store here to 20,000-square-feet in December to make room for the home furnishings fabric department.

Eric Sauma, vice president of Mood Designer Fabrics, said he’s encouraged by the 30-percent sales growth the company experienced in home last year, despite the struggling economy. The Sauma family, Eric, 30; Jack, his father and founder (now semi retired)and his brother Philip,34 at the helm, estimates that home already accounts for nearly half of the company’s overall revenue. (Exact revenue figures are private.)  Eric Sauma, vice president, Mood Desginer Fabrics

The expansion in what some retailers say is a flat fabric market in California, is part of an effort to address what company executives believe to be a lack of home fabric suppliers on the West Coast compared to the New York market.

With home product on the rise for Mood, the 80-employee company will look to specifically do more upholstery and drapery including a line of custom pillows and the manufacturing of dining room chairs. 

Mood-the retailer (not to be confused with MoOD, the fabric exhibition in Belgium) will be split evenly between home furnishings and apparel fabrics. The company originally began selling only apparel fabrics in the early 1990’s but started with home fabrics in 2007. 

Currently, its 40,000-square-foot facility on 39th Street in the Manhattan garment district dedicates 12,000-square-feet to residential home fabrics, with the balance used for cutting, sewing and trimming for the fashion industry. Inside this location is a 15,000 square foot fashion manufacturing company that custom makes any print or solid, from 100 yards to 10,000 yards, he said. It also has a converting and manufacturing plant inside as well as a 60,000 square foot warehouse in New Jersey with “every fabric imaginable.”  

Eric reported more spending on larger home products over the past year, a trend he said was absent from the market because of the recession in 2008. Eric said the company lost ten percent of its revenue in 2008 but “ever since then it’s been really good.”

“People are less afraid to spend on bigger items,” he said. “People are spending $15,000 for drapes instead of just small money on pillows.” He also said the appetite to spend is now being met by a fashion trend towards simpler product. 

“People used to have fringes, trimming, all kinds of tassels on drapes, for example, but now they want to do simple drapes,” he said. “It’s no longer classic like it was five years ago.”

Danyce Bonebrake, home decorations manager, said the company does its best to purchase domestically but it’s not always possible with certain materials. 

“People want eco-friendly stuff and we’re trying to source domestically but with cotton and linen, clients understand it’s going to come at an increase in cost.”

Bonebrake said the company raises prices every six to eight months and estimates that there has been a five to 10-percent increase in prices over the past six months. Generally speaking, she said, the average price of a yard ranges $18 – $45, or about $30 per yard. 

In the next two quarters, however, the focus is on launching the store in Los Angeles to establish Mood as a name brand for home furnishing retailers on the West Coast. 

“We’ve been able to succeed in part because while other stores go to middlemen to get product from the mill and do a double markup, we go directly to the mill and offer better prices,” Sauma said.

The company buys from European mills from Italy, Belgium and India as well as converters in England, Germany, Sweden, Columbia, Brazil and Mexico. 

Jack Sauma, migrated to the U.S. in 1976 and began collecting and selling clothes to department stores and boutique shops, doing the occasional cutting and sewing as well. 

 He sold only apparel fabrics for the fashion industry; his biggest client was Oscar de la Renta. Still, it was a tough start-up. “My dad really struggled for almost two decades,” Sauma said. “He had no problem selling the clothing, but he just couldn’t make a lot of money doing it,” Eric explained. He said his father’s struggles got to a point in the early 1990s when he simply wanted to get out of the fashion industry. From that decision, however, a light bulb went on.

“He made a lot of money selling off all of his fabrics trying to get out of the industry, so he decided to enter into selling the actual fabric for the fashion industry.”

He bought a 5,000 square-foot facility in the garment district and turned it into a cutting room.He said it’s amazing to think back to where the company was in the 1990s and compare it to where it is now. 

For the past 10 years, the 40,000 square foot N.Y.facility has hosted Project Runway, a ‘Lifetime Network’ show hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum. Sauma’s midtown facility is used for the part of the show where the contestants shop for fabric to later present as wardrobes to Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, the show’s judges.