Some companies talk about legacy. Mayer Fabrics lives it.
The Indianapolis-based contract textile company is heading into NeoCon this year with two showrooms at THE MART, a freshly launched collection that’s already generating buzz, a sustainability-forward grouping that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in fabric technology, and a story that stretches back to 1897. That year, founder George L. Paetz began supplying oilcloth, leatherette and fringe to craftsmen repairing horse-drawn buggies on the eve of the automotive age.
Fast forward 129 years the fourth generation of the same family is preparing to debut a brand-new showroom on the third floor of THE MART. Mayer Fabrics has been building toward this for years, and June in Chicago is where it is all coming together.
The centerpiece of that visibility is the new permanent showroom on the Mart’s third floor, one of the building’s highest-traffic levels and a significant step from the 11th floor where Mayer has operated for the past dozen years. The new neighbors tell the story: Arcadia, Encore, WorkRite, Stylex, KFI, Krug and Momentum are all within steps of Mayer Fabrics. It’s the kind of neighborhood that draws traffic on its own merits.
The new showroom will be a meaningful upgrade from what Mayer has had before. The space includes a kitchen and wet bar area making it far better suited for hosting events throughout the year, not just during Chicago Design Week. “It’s going to be much more inviting as far as being able to host events,” Mayer said.
Visitors will find three new product collections waiting for them.
The Indulgence Collection, which made its debut at BDNY in New York last fall to strong reviews, gets its Chicago introduction at NeoCon. It’s a wide-ranging collection that moves from an entry-level Saxony at $15 per yard all the way to a digitally printed cut velvet at $156 per yard. “It’s the first time Mayer has ever launched a collection with products spanning that large of a price point,” Mayer said, and the early market response has validated the gamble. The collection has performed across workplace, education and hospitality applications, with custom color requests coming in for the cut velvet patterns.
The Regency Collection arrives with even more freshness having just shipped to customers recently. And then there’s the Origins Collection, perhaps the most forward-thinking of the three: a sustainability-focused collection that incorporates ocean-harvested plastics alongside Hyphyn, the first biodegradable vinyl product on the market. The Origins Collection extends Mayer’s commitment to the environment with additional Hyphyn products, with even more planned for the fourth quarter of this year and first quarter of next.
The sustainability story connects directly to what the company has been doing on the technology side. Over the past five years, Mayer has worked closely with CET to build a materials library portal that allows dealers and designers to access Mayer’s full product library, which includes high-resolution, low-resolution and tile images, along with full specs, directly within CET. “The dealer and the market basically are telling us it saves them 40% of their time in specifications,” Mayer said.
That kind of operational commitment is consistent with how Mayer Fabrics has always approached its business — methodically, personally, and with an eye toward relationships that outlast any single project. That philosophy traces directly back to how the company was built.
George Paetz’s buggy supply business pivoted to automotive as cars replaced horses, and by mid-century had also established a foothold in residential textiles. When Rob Mayer’s father Richard and his cousin Harold Paetz became partners in 1961, the company found its footing as a regional textile business serving upholstery shops and the interior trade. Harold’s sudden death in 1982, after a heart attack on a mission trip to Haiti, led to Rob Mayer’s parents purchasing the other half of the business from Harold’s widow in 1985, at which point the company was operating under the name Mayer Paetz Inc. and was still 85% residential.
What followed was one of the more remarkable pivots in the industry’s history. In 1988, Rob, then 22 years old and already thinking about what the company could become, helped launch the contract division under the name Mayer Contract Fabrics. By 1992, just four years later, the business had flipped: 80% commercial, 20% residential. A network of independent rep groups replaced the wallcovering distribution partners the company had initially used to expand nationally.
Rebrands in 1999, 2004 and most recently 2023 have kept the presentation fresh, but the underlying DNA hasn’t changed. The company grew through responsiveness, design leadership and the kind of personal service that still means someone picks up the phone when you call.
“A person actually answered the phone,” Mayer recalled a job candidate telling him recently, marveling at the novelty of it. Mayer laughed. “That’s something that we’ve always done and something that we plan to do as long as I’m around.”
Today, the business is 98% commercial, with fifth-generation family members already active in the company. The government sector runs alongside the core commercial operation.
The new third floor showroom at THE MART is a statement about where Mayer Fabrics stands after 129 years. It is still family-owned, still service-first and still building after all those years.