Everyone was stunned to hear that Baer Fabrics made an abrupt announcement that they were closing their doors forever, effective immediately at 5pm yesterday. The announcement came with zero warning, and gave little or no heads-up to even their own employees. No "going out of business" sale was held. One day the store was there, and then suddenly it just wasn't.
I think that's really, really, really odd. And troubling.
Baer's had been in continuous business for over a century, and Catclaw had come to depend highly on them for their astonishingly deep selection of everything fabric-related. Their button department alone boggled the mind with its tens of thousands of incredible buttons of all conceivable varities. Much of our supplies for Toulouse-inations comes from their wonderful costuming department.
Baer's always referred to themselves as "The world's largest button and fabric store", and though this probably wasn't quite true - I feel certain that it must be dwarfed by someplace in NYC, Europe, India or China - it's nevertheless a great loss for the entire world of fabrics, textiles and fiber. Not to mention us.
