Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Retailers (U.S.) — NAICS 45913

A rollup primer for a general investing audience — relevant to both public-market and private investors. NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the official U.S. government scheme for sorting businesses by activity. This page summarizes a NAICS industry (5-digit code); the full detail lives in its single child below.

1. Overview

This is the fabric-and-sewing store business: shops that sell cloth "by the yard," yarn, patterns, thread, quilting supplies, needlework kits, and the notions — zippers, buttons, trims — that go with them. Think the old JOANN Fabrics, the local quilt shop, and the neighborhood yarn store.

At the 5-digit level, NAICS 45913 is a single-child pass-through: it contains exactly one 6-digit industry, 459130, and the two are effectively identical in scope, size, and economics. Everything the numbers say about 45913 is the story of 459130. This page gives the level's own ground-truth federal figures and a short orientation; for the full treatment — the investable universe, unit economics, demand drivers, regulation, and outlook — see the child primer, 459130.

The one headline that dominates the investment picture: the industry just lost its only public company. JOANN — the national fabric chain that anchored the category — was liquidated in 2025, closing roughly 800 stores.[2][3] There is no U.S.-listed pure-play today. The relevant operating businesses are now private, family-owned, private-equity-backed, regional, or online specialists.

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

NAICS nests from broad to narrow: sector (2-digit) → subsector (3) → industry group (4) → industry (5) → national industry (6). Most 5-digit industries fan out into several 6-digit children. This one does not.

Because there is a single child, the 5-digit and 6-digit codes describe the same set of establishments — fabric stores, quilting-supply stores, needlecraft stores, upholstery-material stores, and yarn shops, some of which also sell sewing machines. No aggregation across siblings is happening here; 45913 is simply the label one rung up from 459130. That is why this page is short and hands you off to the child for anything beyond the summary.

One boundary worth flagging, because it drives the numbers: most "craft" spending happens outside this code. General arts-and-crafts chains — Michaels and Hobby Lobby — are classified in 459120 (Hobby, Toy, and Game Retailers) even though both sell large amounts of fabric and yarn; sewing-machine-only stores sit in 449210; finished clothing sits in 458110. This code is the raw materials to make clothing and home goods, not the finished garments, and not the broad craft chains.[1]

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

The figures below are our ground-truth federal data for 45913. Because the level has one child, they are identical to 459130's. They come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 Economic Census and describe the formal employer-business core, not the entire sewing-and-needlework economy.

CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50 are concentration ratios — the combined revenue share of the largest 4, 8, 20, or 50 firms. HHI is a standard concentration score; it is suppressed for this code, so no numeric value exists to report. Establishment- and employment-level detail (store counts, payroll, jobs) is not part of our ground-truth stats for this 5-digit level; those figures — roughly 3,600 store locations and 34,000 employees on County Business Patterns — are carried in the 459130 child primer.[4]

Undercount caveat — in two directions. (a) Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Etsy sell enormous amounts of fabric and yarn but are classified elsewhere, so the ~$4.64 billion here captures only the pure-play slice. (b) Census employer statistics exclude businesses with no paid employees; in this tiny-operator-heavy niche — solo online sellers, home-based shops, independent teachers, market vendors — that omission is large. Individual and family ownership dominates, so the formal firm count understates the true number of sewing/fabric microbusinesses. Non-federal industry tallies that combine the craft chains and these microbusinesses put U.S. fabric/craft/sewing storefronts above 33,500 — an order of magnitude more than this code's count. Treat that broader number as an industry estimate, not a Census figure.[5]

And the snapshot is already stale. The top four firms' 54.1% share in 2022 was almost certainly dominated by JOANN (~$2.2 billion in annual sales in its final full years — close to half the code's receipts). JOANN's 2025 collapse removed the single firm around which the concentration data was built; future federal data will show a dramatically smaller 45913.[2][3]

4. Investable universe

Value in this level concentrates the same way it does in the child, because they are the same industry. The short version:

• There is no U.S.-listed pure-play. JOANN's common stock was canceled in bankruptcy and its retail business liquidated in 2025.[2][3]
• The largest current fabric/yarn seller is private. Michaels — owner of JOANN's brands and intellectual property after the 2025 auction — is held by funds managed by Apollo Global Management (the manager trades as APO, NYSE); Apollo is the closest concentrated public route, but the investment case is alternative-asset management, not sewing retail.[6][7]
• Hobby Lobby is family-owned (Green family) and not investable.
• Ecosystem names give indirect exposure: marketplaces (AMZN, ETSY), equipment and thread makers (Brother, Coats Group), and diversified retailers (WMT, TGT) that carry fabric departments they do not separately disclose.
• The real category assets are private: regional specialty operators, online quilting businesses (e.g., Missouri Star Quilt Co., Fat Quarter Shop), private-label brands, and thousands of owner-run local shops.

Full company table, tickers, and the private-owner map are in the 459130 primer.

5. How the money works

Classic specialty retail with unforgiving economics, identical to the child: wholesale procurement plus retail markup, but margins vary sharply by line. Notions are repeat but price-sensitive; fabric and yarn turn slowly and carry a huge SKU (stock-keeping unit) count, tying up working capital and inviting markdowns; machines are higher-ticket but need expertise and service; private label lifts margin (the reason Michaels bought JOANN's brands). Coupons — the 40%-off habit chains trained into customers — pull realized margin well below sticker. Independents compete on curation, classes, and community rather than price. The chain model's downfall was financial: private-equity debt on a thin-margin, slow-turn business is the direct path JOANN walked to two bankruptcies. See the child primer for the full unit-economics breakdown and operating metrics.

6. Demand drivers

Demand tracks the size and engagement of the hobbyist base — an estimated ~30 million Americans who sew (a non-federal figure) — and it is discretionary, so it moves with consumer confidence.[5] The pandemic pulled in younger crafters via "cottagecore," visible mending, sustainability, and video tutorials (YouTube, TikTok); wellness and screen-free-time framing has been a durable tailwind. "Make vs. buy" has flipped — fast fashion is cheaper than DIY, so sewing is now a passion and values choice, not a thrift strategy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks "sewing machines, fabric and supplies" as its own Consumer Price Index (CPI) line, a sign the category is distinct enough to measure separately.[8]

7. Regulation

Light-touch, with no industry-specific licensing regime. What matters: tariffs and import duties on textiles (most fabric is imported — arguably the single largest cost variable, and a live issue in the current trade environment); textile labeling under the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Textile Fiber Products Identification Act and Care Labeling Rule; product safety under the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Flammable Fabrics Act, biting hardest on machines, electrical accessories, and children's kits; and ordinary retail rules (sales tax, labor, leases, and — online — privacy and counterfeit-goods enforcement). Detail is in the child primer.[9]

8. Consolidation

The defining fact of the last decade is the serial collapse of the national chain segment. Hancock Fabrics (once number two) liquidated in 2016; JOANN (number one) went from a 2011 take-private, to a 2021 initial public offering (IPO), to two bankruptcies, to full liquidation by 30 May 2025.[2][3] The U.S. now has essentially zero national pure-play fabric chains. Into the vacuum: Michaels and Hobby Lobby (both craft chains classified in 459120, both private) are absorbing the orphaned fabric customer — Michaels bought JOANN's IP and private-label brands and expanded its assortment; online players (Amazon, Etsy, independent e-tailers) take yarn, notions, and patterns, though fabric-by-the-yard resists e-commerce because touch and drape matter; independents hold the enthusiast core but are individually tiny. The net effect inverts the 2022 concentration data: the dominant firm is gone and share has scattered across differently-classified chains, marketplaces, and small shops.[4][6][7]

9. Risks

Same risk set as the child. The headline is structural, not cyclical, decline of the big-box fabric format — two liquidations of the two largest chains suggest the superstore model may be obsolete, not merely mismanaged. Add discretionary-spending sensitivity, inventory/markdown risk in a slow-turn category, tariff and input-cost inflation on imported fabric with limited pass-through to coupon-trained customers, commodity price competition from mass merchants and marketplaces, the "make vs. buy" ceiling, fixed-cost and leverage risk (the JOANN/PE-debt warning), demographic conversion risk (turning pandemic-era younger crafters into durable customers), and thin public disclosure that misses much of the microbusiness layer.

10. How to invest & outlook

Public routes are all indirect — there is no listed pure-play. Realistic exposure means owning the surrounding ecosystem: diversified retail (WMT/TGT), marketplaces (AMZN/ETSY), equipment/thread makers (Brother, Coats), or Apollo (APO) as the nearest route to private Michaels — none of which is a clean bet on this industry. Private routes are where the real assets sit: Michaels (via Apollo) is the concentrated consolidated-demand bet; Hobby Lobby is not investable; owning an independent quilt/yarn/fabric shop is a genuine option but a main-street small business, not a scalable financial asset. Federal size standards confirm the point — essentially every operator here qualifies as a small business.

Outlook (forward-looking judgment, not reported fact). The hobby looks healthier than the retail format. Sewing and crafting demand appears stable-to-modestly-growing, but it is migrating away from stand-alone fabric superstores toward multi-category craft chains, online marketplaces, and curated independents. Near-term swing factors: tariffs on imported fabric, the health of discretionary spending, whether Michaels captures the orphaned JOANN customer, and whether independents can scale community and omnichannel selling. For a public-market investor this is a compelling consumer-behavior story but a thin equity opportunity; the durable money sits with private, PE-held craft chains and the adjacent equipment and marketplace names.

For everything beyond this summary — the full company table, unit economics, demand analysis, regulatory detail, and complete sourcing — see the child primer, NAICS 459130.

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Sources

Drawn from the 459130 child primer; numbering is local to this page.

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS: 459130 — Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Retailers" (definition and exclusions). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=459130&input=459130&year=2022
2. Associated Press, "Fabric and craft retailer Joann to go out of business and close all of its stores," 2025. https://apnews.com/article/b83c68fb641fad18cd6c8be925c6d90b
3. NPR, "The fabric giant Joann will close all of its stores by the end of May," 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/25/nx-s1-5307907/joann-closing-stores-bankruptcy
4. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms (receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50; HHI suppressed), NAICS 459130; establishment/employment detail from County Business Patterns 2023. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN
5. Craft Industry Alliance / Like Sew, "Textile & craft industry trends" (~33,500 U.S. fabric/craft/sewing storefronts; ~30 million Americans sew — non-federal industry estimates). https://likesew.com/blog/textile-industry-trends
6. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Michaels Companies / Apollo Global Management transaction filing, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1593936/000110465921031589/tm218586d2_ex99-4.htm
7. The Michaels Companies, "Michaels Acquires JOANN Intellectual Property and Private-Label Brands" (press release), 2025; and Associated Press, "Michaels completes acquisition of Joann's intellectual property and fan-favorite labels," 2025. https://apnews.com/article/c57cae0101fc31da0661c69691066bf5
8. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index — "sewing machines, fabric and supplies" line item. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.t02.htm
9. Federal Trade Commission, "Apparel and Labeling" and "Care Labeling Rule"; Consumer Product Safety Commission, "Retailers: Product Safety and Your Responsibilities" (and the Flammable Fabrics Act). https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/tools-consumers/apparel-labeling · https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Retailers-Product-Safety-and-Your-Responsibilities