Printer’s Alley opened in 1979 as a retail division of P/Kaufmann. P/Kaufmann was at that time in the business of converting and selling decorative fabrics under various divisions that included P/Kaufmann, Bloomcraft, Braemore, Folia, Western Textiles and Clarence House. P/Kaufmann has exacting standards of quality and design excellence. Fabrics that did not make this cut (but were perfectly OK for use in most applications – eg. A spot somewhere on the roll – the rest of the roll was just fine etc) were sold as seconds. Printer’s Alley was born.
Printer’s Alley’s approach to the retail market is to present a large selection of fabric in
an uncluttered, straight forward setting which allows the fabrics to make their own design statement. Another important part of our approach to the retail market is that the value of selling seconds stretches our customer’s decorating dollars. Finally the third part of our approach is a professional staff to assist our customers in coordination of fabrics, technical advice on yardage requirements and knowledge shared with the customer about wearability.
Custom ordered upholstered furniture and bedding were added to the Raleigh store soon after opening. With the opening of the Richmond store in September 1981, decorative accessories and more upholstered furniture were added to the mix of merchandise Printer’s Alley offered in a large store format. In November 1983, the Greensboro store opened in Friendly Shopping Center. A store was opened in Roanoke, Virginia in the fall of 1986, followed by a store in Hampton, Virginia in September 1987. In the fall of 1988 the original Raleigh store was moved to a larger location to replicate the other four stores.
In 1994 the Raleigh, Richmond and Greensboro stores were moved to larger locations
nearly doubling the size of each store which allowed Printer’s Alley to offer a larger
fabric selection with more first quality fabrics and a much larger trim selection. Also,
with the move to the bigger stores, area rugs were introduced into the product mix and decorative accessories and furniture expanded. The Roanoke store was closed in the fall of 1994, the Hampton location was closed in 2000, and a new store was opened in
Wilmington in May of 2001.
The Richmond and Wilmington Stores were sold to artee in 2009.
Over the years, to cater to our clients we have added a wealth of fabrics and trims to round off the selections. A large collection of accessories and madeups (readymade window panels, pillows) have been added and constantly updated.
In 2017 the Greensboro and Raleigh Stores were acquired by Fabric Alley. An outlet store was added in our Burlington NC location. In 2019 we added the Charlotte NC store to the list of ever growing locations.
The Printer’s Alley store caters to the homeowner who is looking for decorating fabrics and custom services for their homes. Our motto is ‘your style your way’ … we work hard to achieve your goal and assist you to make your space/house your home!