Van’s Fabrics

One of the few places left to get bridal fabrics. Many of their silks and laces have a Chinese look, but enough don’t that this place is well worth a visit.

The fabrics didn’t attract me. They have a strong preference towards traditional Chinese style, which to my eyes a bit too corny and costume-​y. I believe their price might be fair — as thinking that so much embroidery and shiny beads were added on, it must be quite expensive to produce. But aesthetically it just doesn’t appeal to me.
Good place to look for costume inspirations though.

With Joann’s fabric running all the smaller fabric shops out of town, it’s getting harder and harder to find any kind of specialty fabric store without having to order online in large quantities. I mean, if you’re not in the mood for fur-​print fleece or quilter cotton solids, nowadays you’re almost always SOL.
Thankfully stores like Van’s are still around, though it can be a little hard to find. You have to be buzzed in to the store (I’m assuming because the back of the fabric section is actually a jewelry store as well) so don’t be tricked into thinking it’s closed!
Enter in and you’ll see a tightly-​packed wall of silk brocades in all sorts of colors and hues. Cheaper polyester brocades will be resting on bolts closer to the floor, so you can find something to fit your budget. And yes, this is REAL embroidered brocade, not polyester screened print or anything. Meaning it frays if you don’t take care of it properly (so watch the selvage!), treat it well!
Price-​wise a yard for silk when I went was $ 14 and $ 7 for polyester, which is wholly reasonable. Be warned, they don’t cut anything smaller than a half-​yard, but considering how specialized this fabric is you really don’t want it in small quantities! (And oh, the possibilities even with the scraps!)

If you’re looking for Chinese or Vietnamese style fabrics, this is the place to go. Van’s has all kinds of brocades and traditional Asian fabrics to pick from, and this is good quality stuff, not the cheap brocade knock-​offs you might find at places like Jo Ann’s. Patterns on the brocade are traditional enough that you can make your own cheongsaam or minlaap (if you have mad skillz), or Van’s also carries some glitzier, more flashy patterns and brighter colors if you prefer Vietnamese style dresses. I saw a lot of gauze/​lace/​metallic fabrics there also.
The brocade up in shelving on the wall is all silk, the ones in rolls on the floor are polyester. It goes to say that the silk is more expensive, but again it is a very heavy, good-​quality brocade.
Van’s also has «normal» fabrics on the right hand side of the store if you’re just looking for plainer colors in cotton or linen. I think the back of the store is some kind of jewelry shop? or something, but the owner is very nice and helpful when we looked like we were rather clueless. The store isn’t very big, and it doesn’t have every brocade pattern EVAR but for what we were looking for (small swatches for accents on costumes), it was a more than decent selection.