Design Group Americas (DGA), parent company of the Big 4 sewing pattern brands, announced on Friday that it has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In early June, we reported that DGA had been sold into liquidation. This development may provide a hint about their potential future.
The new owner of DGA, Hilco Capital, is calling the move “a value maximization strategy.” Filing for bankruptcy allows DGA to dissolve the brands that Hilco deems unsustainable and to sell those that could have redeeming value.
DGA owns 27 craft brands, of which Simplicity, Butterick, Vogue, and McCalls are just four. Other craft brands readers may recognize include Perler, Boye, and Wrights. But DGA owns over 50 brands in total, many in other sectors such as toys and games for children, stickers, party supplies, and gift wrap. It’s not clear whether Hilco has determined that the sewing and craft brands may have value to potential buyers or not. What is clear is that the bankruptcy filing will allow DGA to wind down its domestically produced ribbon business, a segment Hilco has deemed unsustainable.
“Following DGA’s sale to an affiliate of Hilco Capital Group, we have worked diligently with our advisors to evaluate the optimal path forward for the business,” said Sue Buchta, Chief Executive Officer of DGA. “We enter the court-supervised sale process in dialogue with multiple interested parties for certain of our business segments as a going concern and intend to leverage chapter 11 to maximize the value of our assets.”
So while we don’t know specifics, it sounds as though there could be potential buyers interested in purchasing at least some of the craft and sewing brands, and, in the interim, those brands will continue to operate. Meanwhile, Simplicity continues to post on its Instagram account, and longtime Simplicity designer and partner, MimiG, has assured her followers that “it’s business as usual at Simplicity Creative Group and we’re moving full steam ahead.”
Abby Glassenberg
Contributor
Abby co-founded Craft Industry Alliance and now serves as its president. She’s a sewing pattern designer, teacher, and journalist. She’s dedicated to creating an outstanding trade association for the crafts industry. Abby lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
It will be interesting to see what happens. It’s always “business as usual” until it’s not, but hopefully someone will buy the pattern company(ies?) and keep them going.
Sigh. I’m crossing my fingers for the pattern brands to be bought by a company ready to keep them going. But the way other things are going, I’m not going to hold my breath.
Private equity has been a death knell to so many businesses that we all interact with. We’ll need to improve local pattern drafting skills and keep backlogs and archives of existing (and vintage) patterns. The loss of the big 4 pattern brands (and tens of other brands) is a huge loss of knowlege across this craft.
It might be up to us to keep pattern making skills alive. Maybe there will be a surge in learning to sew and making patterns.
My hope is that this sends more business in the direction of the small independent designers out there. They have a professional association already. As a seamstress and pattern printer I see so many well and not so well designed patterns, the cream always rises to the top.
Molly, thank you for mentioning indie patterns. I work so hard to make my patterns well drafted with lots of i instructions.
Unfortunately once a company is sold into liquidation that usually sounds the end of them. I do hope these patterns dont dissappear. I have used them over the years and I know many sewers who love them. But like Joann, I think we are for another loss in the craft world.
I’ve been thinking about this liquidation a lot over the past month. I do wonder if a new buyer might move to the model of print on demand. With future tech allowing for super fast delivery around the planet, this might be a viable option. (It’s not as far away as we think…) Even with improved CAD software, you might be able to input in your measurements and the CAD would alter the pattern to match before printing.
Also, where are all the archives? It would be amazing to see them all from decades past where we can create mood boards and “playlists” like Youtube, Spotify or Pinterest does. This way, others can see our personal curated collection.
So many possibilities!
Annabelle,
What a terrific idea! I am 73 and have lived mostly in Vogue and Butterick pattern world my whole life. Keep pursuing the concept….I think it has a niche
Yes agree so many possibilities especially the idea of putting in your measurements and the pattern being modified to fit you. It’s where my thinking is anyway.
i tried those print on demand patterns. apart from using a HUGE amount of paper, its all those little pieces you have to stick together (or maybe I was doing it wrong). I am no longer doing professional sewing, but Im making stuff for a few friends, family and me. I thought we were going away from the mass produced cheapy things, but I guess not. if it becomes too difficult or impossible to get printed patterns, then the cheapies will win out, sadly.
My hubby suggested print-on-demand to them years ago–I am thinking 2006! However they concentrated on catering to JoAnn and their $1.99 sales. Customers became conditioned to $1.99 patterns, while smaller retailers continued to pay “wholesale” or 50% of the marked retail price ($35 priced pattern was invoiced at $17.50. How does that work when JoAnn is selling for $1.99, 2.99, 5.00?)
Wow, that is grossly unfair. It’s yet another action about big business putting the squeeze on the small stores to take a monopoly and then going belly up. Very anti-competition. Surely DGA must have been selling at a loss at that price. Who were they helping?
There are so many digital pattern companies online. I don’t know why they haven’t made that move.
I still prefer a printed pattern – my sewing time is limited and faffing around sticking sheets of paper together is no fun! Getting a pdf pattern printed on A0 paper ends up costing far more than buying a traditional paper pattern. I also find it much easier to go through my collection of paper patterns and select something to sew compared with going through the pdf files in Books or Adobe.
Simplicity prints many indie pattern companies tissue at a plant in WI. If they go out it may be a challenge for them to in business as well.
The general public has no concept of the “trickle down” fallout of businesses who relied on the volume of items sold through JoAnn stores. Scissors, thread, buttons, interfacing, patterns, etc. all had corporate business behind those names that collapsed and thousands of jobs eliminated when they lost their largest customer–JoAnn. Online shopping for patterns elimates thousands of jobs, but still someone has to supply the paper, the printing, writing/printing instructions and envelopes for pattern sales to continue. Can online orders save pattern companies? It all depends if Simplicity chooses to take that onward. Otherwise millions of sewing customers will no longer have patterns to sew from.
Yes I agree. The largest fabric / sewing machine/ pattern store in Australia and New Zealand, Spotlight, now has fabric sales at 40% off. It leaves me feeling nervous they may be trying to give away the whole craft section if the patterns cannot be replaced.
Does someone want us to stop sewing?
Not at all. They just need management that moves faster with the times. To take a business this size to the point of bankruptcy is rather horrifying. Unless something unexpected happened, they should have moved faster to slimline the budget.
It seems like it.
I’ve just received notification of the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Case, Case No. 25-90164 (CML) and it covers all companies under the Lion Ribbon Texas Corp. it’s an order granting complex case treatment
It’s going to be an interesting few months
Thanks Stubbs, that is helpful. Keep in touch with the progress.