McCalls - more than your average pattern company!

In 1869 James McCall, established a small tailoring shop on Broadway and became a general US agent for “The Royal Chart” (a system for drafting patterns) when he saw that many women preferred to make their own clothes. This was the beginning of McCall Pattern Company, patterns were simply cut from a tissue with shears from a drawing made by James McCall. In the 1920’s & 30’s, McCalls copied couture originals from more than 60 Paris designers and then in the ’50s Paris originals again appeared in the McCalls line with designs by Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Cardin, to this day McCalls still publish many original couture designs. 1980 was a banner year for McCalls when Palmer/Pletsch, already known throughout the home sewing industry for their fitting techniques joined the McCalls team. The new millennium commenced with still more changes for McCalls when they merged with Butterick and Vogue Patterns in 2001.

Today McCall’s patterns are distributed to all points of the United States and Canada as well as 85 foreign countries with subsidiary companies in the UK and Australia.

McCalls not only distribute McCalls, Butterick and Vogue Patterns, they also have a great range of products that compliment all those sewers and crafters out there. McCalls distribute some of the world’s leading Brands – products like: Wallies paper and vinyl wall designs; the “weft” family of fusible interfacings – Armo, Whisper, Texture and Sheer; Sun Silky and Bemsilk Linings; Sewing and Craft Felt products and the quality Mettler thread range.

McCalls came to Australia in the 1950s which was the peak time for the use of dress patterns around the world. Since then CHANGE has become the norm with the first major change being the department stores getting out of fabrics and patterns in the early 1990s. The specialty retailers Lincraft and Spotlight expanded to take over sales and independent retailers were increased by Asian shops with a tradition of fabric production and large prints and colors.

The new century showed mergers of all sorts with sewing machine manufactures numbers reduced and McCalls took over the Butterick & Vogue Pattern brands. Since then the Web has become a major area for sales as the small independent retailers leave our industry leaving many regional towns and suburbs without a local retailer.

McCalls hopes, with our new Web site, to fill this gap with a convenient direct to you service of the highest quality.

Our customer service team can be contacted and talked to and have years of experiences:

Service Manager: Dennis Darcy has been with McCalls for 16 years covering warehousing and customer relationships.

Taalasi Ioelu is also a long term employee and has been in our sales office for 9 years. The last 3 years she has been supervising the sales from our old Web site.

Ruth Rau has been 8 years with us administrating Retail Orders and covering phone enquires.

We are dedicated to making your using our Web Site to being a plesent, interesting and productive experience.