At the age of 58, Paul Robbins concedes that he’s part of a dying business, but he’s not quite ready to throw in the towel on his 25-year career as a fabric broker.

Up until about five years ago, Robbins says he would’ve been thrilled if his son had decided to join him in the business; however, in recent years, he has seen dramatic changes that have nearly eliminated the domestic fabric trade. An estimated 80 percent of the U.S. fabric and clothing manufacturing business has moved to China, Pakistan, India and other overseas locations, because U.S. manufacturers can no longer compete with companies that pay their workers as little as $50 per month in wages. Clothing can be purchased so inexpensively at megastores like Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart, there is no longer an economic incentive for people to sew their own garments, he says. The days when most department stores carried fabric for home sewing are long since gone.

“There’s one thing about being an entrepreneur… you always have to reinvent yourself,” Robbins says. While other fabric brokers have left the industry completely or shifted their focus to foreign sources, he has carved out a niche market that may best be described as “odd lots, seconds and you-name-it-we’ll-sell-it.”

As a broker, Robbins works much like a real estate agent. He arranges a sale between an owner and a buyer and earns a commission. The owners—or sources of the fabric—include fabric mills, home furnishing and clothing manufacturers and fabric “jobbers” who purchase and take title to fabric and then sell it through brokers or directly to customers. His buyers include top fabric chain stores such as Hancock Fabrics and Jo Ann Stores, as well as a few remaining regional stores that sell fabric, and customers in less affluent countries like Nigeria who buy low-end merchandise by the pound.

From fabric mills, Robbins obtains flawed fabric like seconds and thirds, as well as fabric known as “leaders” (the stiff, wasted lengths of fabric that were used over and over again to test the dyes and get the colors to the right shade before printing). This material often goes to developing countries where “somebody will use it for something,” Robbins says. “I sell under one-yard pieces to my customer in Nigeria, where they use it to wrap fish, and one to nine yard pieces of flock velvet prints that they piece together to upholster couches. They will buy a 45,000-pound container load of all different fabrics.”

From manufacturers, Robbins gets excess or end-of-season fabric used for first-quality merchandise, short pieces from the cutting room floor (which can actually be 10-15 yards long because the cutting tables run the entire length of a warehouse) and off-shade fabrics. “Manufacturers will put a lot of yardage down on the cutting table and cut multiple garments at once, so they check very closely to make sure it is all the same shade. They can’t take a chance that the sleeve might be a different color than the body of a suit jacket,” he says.

With Robbins’ help, the unused fabric from manufacturers may find its way into a retail fabric store, along with wool or other fabrics he sells to stores through a jobber. He also arranges custom orders of special fabrics, where his customers can choose whatever colors they want and the fabric will be milled to their specifications. One such case is a fabric used for costumes that Robbins sells to one of the top fabric chains. “The colors coordinate with what they are already buying much cheaper from overseas, but we are able to give them two-week delivery of whatever color they need in whatever quantity they want. If it’s coming from China, they have to buy a full container load and it takes five to six weeks for delivery,” he says. “Sometimes, it is cheaper to pay a little more money to get just what you want when you want it.”

And, that’s why Robbins thinks the domestic fabric business will never totally die. There’s also the military, which purchases all of its fabric and does all of its manufacturing within U.S. borders. “That’s a lot of camouflage,” Robbins says.

If he were just starting out in the business, Robbins says he’d probably get out or develop more international connections. However, with just four to six years left before he retires, he plans to ride out his career serving those he’s worked with for so many years. And, though he jokes that his motto is “price, not pride,” Robbins clearly takes pride in the business relationships he has built in an increasingly difficult industry.

“Over time, you keep looking for and meeting people. You take the hardest thing that a mill has to sell and you find somebody who can use it. You move the items that no one else will take. That’s how I built my business,” Robbins says. “It’s really about the relationships. If a person likes you, you do business.”

Paul Robbins lives in Irvington, N.Y., with his wife, Barbara Lowenthal. Their son, Jason, is a UD sophomore majoring in accounting.