Joint venture: Wearbest teams with Chinese fabric maker

By Carole Sloan -- Home Textiles Today, 12/16/2002 12:00:00 AM

GARFIELD, NJ —

In a move that could be called "everything old is new again," Wearbest Sil-tex Mills has teamed with a Hong Kong company that has manufacturing facilities in China to produce a high-end, silk-based decorative fabric collection that will launch at Showtime in High Point, NC, next month.

Called the Wearbest Silk Collection, "It harkens back to when we were Wearbest Silk Mills, when we were making and selling silk made right here," said Irwin Gasner, president. The multi-generation company, part of a community of legendary silk mills in the area, stopped silk weaving here in 1983, Gasner said.

"It's very exciting; we're the exclusive business operating partner.

"Together we're going to leverage our design, marketing and sales strength with their manufacturing and sales expertise," Gasner explained.

The looks in the new collection range from classic to transitional and are all silk, and blends of silk/ Dacron polyester, silk/mercerized cotton and silk/rayon, Gasner related.

"The silk offers the panache; the mercerized cotton the strength and the beauty," he explained.

"We're marketing it the same way we do the rest of the line: exclusives to specific customers and an open line."

In total there will be about 50 patterns in the introductory launch in price points ranging from $14.95 to $25.