Curtain and Linen Mills (U.S.) — NAICS 31412

An investor's primer for public-market and private investors.

Short page — a pass-through level. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 31412 is a five-digit "industry" that contains exactly one six-digit child, 314120 Curtain and Linen Mills. At this level the two are effectively identical, so this page is deliberately brief: it states what the level is, gives its own federal figures, and points you to the full child primer. For all detail — the investable universe, how the money works, regulation, risks, and outlook — read the 314120 Curtain and Linen Mills primer.

1. Overview

"Curtain and Linen Mills" is the U.S. government's label for the plants that cut, sew, finish, and package finished household textiles from fabric they buy elsewhere — sheets and pillowcases, comforters and bedspreads, towels, curtains and draperies, tablecloths and napkins, and shower curtains [1]. It is the last, labor-intensive step that turns a roll of cloth into the soft goods you put on a bed, window, or table.

For an investor, two facts define it. First, it is a small and shrinking domestic manufacturing base — about $3.3 billion of U.S. shipments in 2022, representing approximately $1.76 billion of value added (the domestic production contribution after intermediate inputs) [2][3]. Second, it sits inside a much larger, import-dominated consumer market: Americans buy an estimated ~$25 billion of home textiles a year [4], with USITC reporting $15.4 billion of U.S. home-furnishing textile imports in 2021 alone [5]. The great majority of curtains and linens Americans buy are made offshore, mostly in India and China [6][7]. The domestic mills are a thin, price-pressured sliver of that category.

2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is a nested hierarchy: each five-digit industry breaks into one or more six-digit national industries. NAICS 31412 breaks into a single child:

Because there is only one child, the five-digit level (31412) and the six-digit level (314120) describe exactly the same set of plants — the same scope, the same companies, the same statistics. The split into a separate six-digit code exists only to keep the classification's structure uniform; it carries no additional economic content. So everything true of 314120 is true of 31412, and there is no "sibling" activity to aggregate. The full analysis lives in the 314120 primer [1].

3. Size — this level's rollup figures

Because 31412 has one child, its rollup figures are simply 314120's figures (our ground-truth federal data):

Establishment size distribution. The industry is highly skewed toward small operations: 896 establishments — 84.6% — had fewer than twenty employees. At the other end, Census showed 35 establishments with 100–249 employees and six with 250–499 [8].

Concentration is low — a fragmented domestic industry. The largest four firms made 21.1% of shipments, the top eight 32.2%, the top twenty 52.3%, and the top fifty 67.3%; the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard 0–10,000 concentration gauge) was just 192.1 [2]. U.S. antitrust agencies treat a market below ~1,500 as unconcentrated, so no single domestic maker dominates.

Undercount caveat. These figures count only U.S.-based employer plants that finish household textiles. They do not capture the imported curtains and linens that make up the bulk of what Americans buy — analysts put imports at the overwhelming majority (on the order of 90%+) of home textiles sold in the U.S. [7][6]. A single Indian supplier, Welspun, accounts for roughly 45% of U.S. towel imports and 59% of U.S. sheet imports by recent trade data [6]. The federal counts also likely under-represent tiny custom-drapery and workroom operators — sole proprietors with no employees fall outside the employer-based County Business Patterns count. So the ~$3.3 billion domestic figure understates the category's true economic footprint by a wide margin; most of the value is created offshore and imported.

4. Investable universe — where value concentrates

With a single child, there is nothing to split across sub-industries: all of the exposure discussed for 314120 applies here unchanged. In brief, there is no large, pure U.S.-listed home-textiles manufacturer. The closest U.S.-listed pure-play is small-cap Crown Crafts (CRWS) (~$87M revenue, 24.4% gross margin) [10][11]; Culp (CULP) offers adjacent exposure to home-textile fabrics (mattress ticking, upholstery), not finished linens (~$213M revenue) [12]. Icahn Enterprises (IEP) wholly owns WestPoint Home, providing diluted exposure through a diversified holding company (WestPoint earned an 18% gross margin in 2025) [13]. The largest, most direct pure-plays — Welspun Living, Trident, Indo Count — trade in India [6][14][15]. Most domestic activity is private (WestPoint Home, Standard Textile, 1888 Mills — which operates the largest remaining U.S. towel mill in Griffin, Georgia — and American Textile Company with over 1,000 associates globally) or sits in direct-to-consumer bedding brands (Brooklinen, Boll & Branch, Parachute) [16][17][18]. See the 314120 primer for the full table with scale figures and tickers [1].

5. How the money works

Same as the child: this is a contract cut-and-sew converter business, not a rate-regulated or real-asset one. Owners buy fabric and sell finished goods at a thin spread; margins are set by commoditized value-added (cutting, hemming, sewing, finishing, packaging) and by input costs (cotton, polyester, freight). Profitability turns on winning and holding retailer private-label programs — Crown Crafts' two largest customers (Walmart and Amazon) represented 66% of fiscal-2025 gross sales, and licensed products represented 50% [11] — running plants full (capacity utilization, inventory turns), and escaping pure commodity pricing through premium/branded or institutional (hotel and hospital) linens. Full detail is in the 314120 primer [1].

6. Demand drivers

Unchanged from the child: housing activity (existing-home sales, household formation, completions); consumer discretionary spending and confidence (the category is cyclical and trades down in downturns); redecorating and replacement cycles plus seasonal resets; hospitality and healthcare utilization for institutional makers; and channel shift / e-commerce, which reshuffles who captures the margin. Automation is a countervailing trend — American Textile announced investments in robotics and AI-enabled systems intended to accelerate production and improve consistency [19]. See the 314120 primer for full discussion [1].

7. Regulation

Same regime as 314120. Products are lightly regulated but exposed to safety, labeling, trade, and emerging chemical rules: flammability standards enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) under the Flammable Fabrics Act; fiber-content, country-of-origin, and care labeling under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) testing for infant/toddler items; and — the big swing factor — trade policy, including Section 301 tariffs on Chinese textiles and the 2025 suspension of the "de minimis" ($800 duty-free) import exemption, plus Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) cotton-sourcing diligence [20][21]. An emerging area: PFAS reporting for stain- or water-resistant finishes under EPA's TSCA rule, with deadlines of October 13, 2026 for most manufacturers and April 13, 2027 for small businesses reporting solely as importers [22]. See the 314120 primer for specifics and citations [1].

8. Consolidation

Same dynamics as the child. The dominant force is import competition, which has hollowed out U.S. finished-textile production. Domestically the field is fragmented (HHI ~192) [2]; globally it is concentrated among a few vertically integrated Asian giants (Welspun, Trident, Indo Count). Consolidation shows up as survivor scale among the few remaining U.S. mills, foreign acquisition of U.S. brands (Indo Count buying Wamsutta in 2024 is the template) [15], and premium DTC entrants capturing margin without owning plants [1].

9. Risks

Identical to 314120: structural import and currency competition capping domestic pricing; trade-policy whipsaw (tariffs can protect makers but also raise the cost of imported fabric many converters buy); input and freight volatility (cotton, polyester, ocean freight); customer concentration among a few mega-retailers; cyclicality tied to housing and discretionary spending; labor intensity and weak pricing power; sourcing/ESG compliance (UFLPA); and PFAS chemical and reporting exposure for treated textiles [22]. Full discussion in the 314120 primer [1].

10. How to invest & outlook

Routes. Public-market exposure is thin: Crown Crafts (CRWS) as the closest U.S.-listed pure-play, Culp (CULP) for adjacent fabric exposure, Icahn Enterprises (IEP) for diluted WestPoint Home exposure, and the Indian majors (Welspun Living, Trident, Indo Count) via international brokerage access; there is no dedicated U.S. home-textiles ETF (exchange-traded fund). Most real activity is private — owning or rolling up custom-drapery workrooms, hospitality/healthcare linen suppliers (more defensible, service-driven), or backing premium DTC bedding brands.

Outlook. Domestic manufacturing is likely to stay structurally challenged — import competition and retailer power are not going away, and reshoring finished-textile production is slow and capital-intensive. Near-term swing factors: the 2025–26 tariff and de-minimis regime, cotton prices, housing turnover, automation investments that may improve domestic competitiveness, and UFLPA sourcing compliance. The healthier pockets for investors are institutional/domestic-required linens and premium branded/DTC product, not commodity mass-retail goods.

Because 31412 is a single-child level, this is a summary. For the complete primer — full investable-universe table, deeper economics, and all citations — see 314120 Curtain and Linen Mills.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Definition — 314120 Curtain and Linen Mills (2022); and the Histometrics 314120 primer. https://www.census.gov/naics/
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration Ratios / Summary Statistics, NAICS 314120 (2022). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
3. Federal Reserve, Industrial Production Source and Description — Table 1.16 (2022). https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/SandDesc/table1.16.htm
4. Mordor Intelligence, United States Home Textile Market — Size & Share Analysis (2025). https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-home-textile-market
5. U.S. International Trade Commission, Shifts in U.S. Merchandise Trade 2021 — Textiles (2021). https://www.usitc.gov/research_and_analysis/tradeshifts/2021/textiles
6. Exencial Research Partners, Welspun Living Ltd (2025), citing OTEXA U.S. import data. https://exencialrp.substack.com/p/welspun-living-ltd
7. Sheng Lu / U.S. Fashion Industry Association, State of U.S. Textile and Apparel Manufacturing, Employment and Trade (April 2025). https://shenglufashion.com/2025/04/07/state-of-u-s-textile-and-apparel-manufacturing-employment-and-trade-updated-april-2025/
8. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP), NAICS 314120 (2023). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
9. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Size Standards (2023). https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
10. Crown Crafts, Inc., Investor Relations / FY2025–FY2026 Results (Nasdaq: CRWS). https://www.crowncrafts.com/investor-relations
11. Crown Crafts, Inc., 2025 Annual Report (SEC filing). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/25895/000143774925021419/crowncraftars.pdf
12. Culp, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (SEC filing). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/723603/000095017025095233/culp-20250427.htm
13. Icahn Enterprises L.P., 2025 Form 10-K (SEC filing). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/813762/000110465926019821/tmb-20251231x10k.htm
14. Trident Group, Company Overview (2025). https://www.tridentindia.com/
15. Business Wire, Indo Count Acquires U.S. Premium National Brand WAMSUTTA (2024). https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240419524102/en/
16. 1888 Mills, LLC, USA Manufacturing (2025). https://www.1888millsglobal.com/usa-manufacturing
17. Standard Textile Co., Inc., Company Profile (2025). https://www.standardtextile.com/
18. American Textile Company, About (2025). https://www.americantextile.com/about/
19. American Textile Company, American Textile Company Honored as Record Growth Continues (September 2024). https://www.americantextile.com/about/news/american-textile-company-honored-as-record-growth-continues/
20. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Suspension of Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment — Fact Sheet (August 2025). https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/factsheet_suspension_of_duty-free_de_minimis_treatment.pdf
21. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Forced Labor — Frequently Asked Questions. https://www.cbp.gov/trade/forced-labor/frequently-asked-questions
22. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, TSCA Section 8(a)(7) Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements for PFAS. https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/tsca-section-8a7-reporting-and-recordkeeping