Small-Scale Manufacturing

Stitch Buffalo’s small-manufacturing program is ideal for designers who want to:

Keep production local and support ethical practices
Work directly with the people creating their products
Produce small-batch or bespoke designs
Test product designs and marketability
Build a collaborative partnership with guidance and feedback on material selection, manufacturing practices, and more

All of our products are sewn in Buffalo, NY, by refugee women who live and work in the community. When you work with Stitch Buffalo, you will get to KNOW the people who are making your products!

Some of Our Clients

Featured

ZDROYEVSKI DESIGNS

Designer Alexander Zdroyevski trusts his bespoke menswear production to Stitch Buffalo, where he can work one-on-one with the women sewing his signature garments.

WATER BUFFALO CLUB 716

Water Buffalo Club 716 is a group of over 5000 Buffalo Bills supporters, known for their signature Flintstones inspired fur hats. To extend their support for all things Buffalo, they chose to have their deluxe hats manufactured by the refugee women artisans at Stitch Buffalo—who are now all Bills fans, too!

BREADHIVE BAKERY AND CAFE

BreadHive Bakery and Cafe needed reusable waxed-canvas bags to preserve their artisan bread in customers' homes. As a worker-owned cooperative, they wanted to ensure their products were ethically manufactured and selected Stitch Buffalo.

COMFY COMFY PILLOWS

Comfy Comfy Pillows worked with Stitch Buffalo weavers to create a line of backstrap-loom woven covers for their buckwheat pillows. These were then sewn by machine sewists at Stitch Buffalo.

Aille Design

Aille Design challenges the stereotype that people with disabilities aren’t interested in fashion. In their Barbie x Aille Design campaign, Aille partnered with Mattel to create shirts that say "Barbie is inclusive" with the word "inclusive" in Braille. Stitch Buffalo was one of several local manufacturers who participated in this project.

XII XXI

Jada, who runs the XII XXI clothing brand, came to Stitch Buffalo with a prototype for her new bandana puffer tote bags. We were able to help her create a strategy for production—and Hkawng Lung (orignally from Burma) worked to create her first complete run to launch to her customers!

Why Choose Stitch Buffalo?

XII XXI (Sustainable Clothing Brand)

Designer Jada Ivey learned about Stitch Buffalo in her Fashion Merchandising program at Buffalo State University. She knew Stitch Buffalo was a place that many students loved for sourcing fabric and sewing machines—but she was exited to find out we could also do small manufacturing. She remembers thinking, “You mean I don’t have to call someone in China?”

As a student, Jada doesn’t have time to sew all her products herself—nor does she have the budget to invest in runs of thousands of garments or accessories. Stitch Buffalo was a great fit!

Her first project was a line of puffer bags, which sold out quickly. Jada kept the Stitch Buffalo tags on the products (with the name of the refugee artisan who sewed them) and also tagged Stitch Buffalo in her promo. “Customers loved seeing this and were excited about my products being made in Buffalo,” she says.

Jada loved being able to build a relationship the people making her products—including Hkawng Lung (originally from Burma), who sewed Jada’s products. This process also supported her brand values of ethical production and sustainable materials. She is already planning to include Stitch Buffalo in the production of her next drop of designs!

ComfyComfy Pillows (Buckwheat Pillows)

“ComfyComfy is my family's business that makes buckwheat hull pillows,” says owner Claire Collie. “While living in Buffalo I worked as a volunteer at Stitch Buffalo.”

“I always wanted to collaborate with Stitch Buffalo to make a product that combines the natural support of buckwheat hulls with the beauty created by Stitch Buffalo artists. Working with Dawne (founder of Stitch Buffalo) was easy, relaxing and resulted in beautiful products.”

Water Buffalo Club 716 (Community Organization)

When Therese Forton-Barnes first came up with the idea of making the club’s signature Water Buffalo Club Hats (inspired by Fred Flintstone), she could only adhere sticky patches on the hats—which was not the professional look that she wanted. Plus, she was ordering the hats online, which meant that they weren’t local.

But she knew that as soon as she could source a Buffalo business to make the hats and embroider deluxe patches onto them, she would upgrade the specs of the hat and keep the production local. That’s when she met Stitch Buffalo—and the women behind the new generation of deluxe Water Buffalo Club hats: Munawara Sultana, who moved here from Pakistan in 2021; Palwasha Basir who arrived in Buffalo from Afghanistan in 2019; and Hkawng Lung, who came here from Burma and earned her first paycheck ever from Stitch Buffalo at the age of 72. They're happy to be working and happy to have this opportunity to really embrace something that is such a big part of their new home. Basir says she didn't know much about football before this. "And now my family, all are fans."

"It's so rewarding coming here, helping them and they're helping me and getting them involved in the community," Forton-Barnes said.