By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN — Workers in Midtown's struggling Fashion District are feeling the pinch of a world-wide spike in cotton prices that some say is pushing their businesses to the brink.
Cotton prices are now up more than 100 percent this year, averaging roughly $1.55 a pound, up from 77 cents in January, according to the National Cotton Council of America.
"Our prices are at all-time highs," said Sharon Johnson, a senior cotton analyst at Penson Futures, who said prices have traditionally hovered between 45 and 75 cents a pound.
For the pocket of fabric sellers and apparel manufacturers remaining in the shrinking Garment District, the spike has felt like yet another low blow in a losing fight.
Nabil Ebad, 40, the co-owner of the tiny Ebad Fabrics on 550 Eighth Ave., whose been in business for 30 years, said prices began to climb about a year ago. While he used to pay around $1.50 for a yard of cotton, now he's paying $2, he said.
Nonetheless, he, like many other fabric sellers in the area, continues to charge his customers $6 a yard — the same as he did five or 10 years back.
"We have to keep the same price or else they're not going to buy anything," said Ebad as he stood surrounded by rolls of patterned fabric in bright yellows and oranges, deep reds and soft blues.
"It's hard for everybody," he said. "Everybody's in the same boat."
At Fabrics World USA on W. 38th St. between Seventh and Eighth avenues, manager Syeda Mustary, 32, said the store is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy because of the spike.
Fabric costs have almost doubled, she said, and she's been warned they're headed higher. But the store can't raise prices for fear of driving away its customers, she said.
"We're facing problems every day with the customers... They want prices low because of the economy." she said. But, "polyester and cotton has just jumped into the sky."
Cotton is the store's "bread and butter," making up 30 percent of sales, she said. Most of the rest if its business is polyester, which has also risen in price thanks to bumped-up demand by manufacturers looking for alternatives to cotton.
Mustary said that unless costs fall, the store will be forced to raise its prices in the new year.
"Everyone will have to or else we'll go out of business," she said.
Johnson, the Penson Futures analyst, blamed the rise in cotton prices on "a perfect storm" that has pushed supply to a 15-year low.
Flooding decimated crops in Pakistan; China's consumption grew; India clamped down on exports to protect its market, while futures traders have been trying to take advantage of the highs, said Jeremy Rubman, a new York-based retail strategist at the consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates.
Because materials make up such a significant portion of clothing costs, Rubman warned consumers to expect to pay about 10 to 15 percent more at the register for cotton clothes come spring and summer, when the items being manufactured now make it to the shelves.
Larry Boger, the manager of Guide Fabrics Inc. on W. 38th Street, which manufactures linings used by designers including Zac Posen, said his biggest problem with the spike is that mills he works with are no longer willing to sign contracts because of fluctuating costs.
"It's gone up almost daily," said Boger, whose been in the industry for 21 years and sells about 50,000 yards of cotton a year. "They're not even quoting prices now," he said.
Unlike the fabric sellers, Boger said that he has had no choice but to pass his higher costs onto his clients. But trying to convince them that world-wide prices have gone up can be a challenge.
"Some of our customers, they don’t believe it," Boger complained, echoing concerns voiced by many other business owners.
The added strains aren't helping the local garment industry, which is already struggling to stay afloat.
"It's very tough," said Jimmy Sake, 50, who works at NYC Fabrics Inc. "Business is down, down, down every day."
But not everyone seemed concerned by their fears.
Brooklyn-based fashion designer Raheam Mann, 33, said a jump in prices wouldn’t bother him, since he rarely uses cotton in his custom suits and couture gowns anyway.
"Whatever the price is, you tack it to what they [clients] pay," he said.
