October 1, 2025 | By The Textile Company | News

Fabric forms the framework of this father-daughter firm as it celebrates artisans and traditional techniques while nurturing the Australian design industry

Peter and Jessica Fitzgibbon
(Photography: Tom Ferguson | Styling: Maria Papantoniou)

“Think about the best designers in Australia – they’re our best customers,” says Peter Fitzgibbon, who’s the owner of Sydney-based The Textile Company. He’s talking about big names such as David Hicks, Greg Natale, Thomas Hamel, Alexandra Kidd, Kate Nixon, Adelaide Bragg and more, who visit his showroom to mine its depth of fabric and wallcoverings. With walls occupied by an irresistibly tactile catalogue of printed fabrics, meticulously filed according to their colour base, and a library of delicate grasscloth, wall coverings and wall murals, it’s clear this studio was built with serious product expertise.

Jessica at the business’s HQ in Alexandria. She says her father’s dedication to fabric has also become her lifelong commitment. “Dad is obsessive about it, and I understand now. It’s all fuelled by passion.” (Photography: Tom Ferguson | Styling: Maria Papantoniou)

Yet four decades ago, when Peter Fitzgibbon’s mum dropped the 19-year-old to his first job interview at an Auckland fabric warehouse, there was no inkling of his passion for textiles. He just needed a job. He started out on the floor measuring drops and cutting fabric, then hit the road in sales and started buying before moving to Sydney. The European buying trips were where he forged important supplier relationships with the likes of Phillip Jeffries, Misia and Fabricut, which the business is founded on today.

(Photography: Tom Ferguson | Styling: Maria Papantoniou)

Bringing daughter Jessica on board has moved the business into a meaningful new phase. The trust was there from the start, and it meant Peter could devote more time to seeking excellence and sourcing fabric at European trade shows while Jessica held the fort from the operational side at home. “She was critical to the business,” he explains proudly. “Dad and I work well together – we collaborate and we’re different, so we bring different strengths,” says Jessica.

What she enjoys most about working with incredible brands is the storytelling. “I love fabric and wall coverings, but I need to see more than a sample to understand each one – I want the story behind it to bring it to life for me.” And she loves sharing some of those stories, like that of Jean Monro, the historic English fabric company that weaves and hand-blocks fabrics for the British Royal Family, and with King Charles’s endorsement, is about to release 40 exclusive royal designs.

(Photography: Tom Ferguson | Styling: Maria Papantoniou)

“By investing in chintzes and other fabrics, they are preserving the craft,” explains Jessica, who hosts an ongoing series of industry events bringing designers together with craftspeople for a deep-dive into their fabric houses.
This is amid a global resurgence in an appreciation for arts, crafts and traditional techniques, like those seen in the ‘Manila Hemp’ grasscloth wallcovering collection from Phillip Jeffries. The range features fibres grown and hand-loomed by artisans in the Philippines, then shipped off to Japan to be finished by craftspeople who’ve been practicing their skills for generations. It’s a beautiful, textural wallcovering, dyed into myriad colours that are finding their place on the walls of high-end residential projects and luxury hotels. “Once you’ve used a wallcovering with texture, you can’t look at paint ever again because it’s so flat,” says Jessica.

Sustainability is also a driving force. The textile industry is the second biggest polluter on the planet, after all (that includes fashion). “We want to make sure we’re selling in a responsible way. It’s not fast fashion or fast shopping when you’re doing something as considered as reupholstering a beloved piece of furniture,” says Jessica, and it also means Peter is making good sourcing choices, choosing natural, pure linens and recycled polyesters where he can.

Peter and Jessica Fitzgibbon — the father–daughter duo at the heart of The Textile Company.

Over the past 20 years, few have influenced fabric selection in Australia as much as The Textile Company. It may have to do with their biggest point of difference: they have a limited number of excellent textile suppliers on the books. It’s a less-is-more philosophy and means that product knowledge of each supplier runs deep among the showroom teams. “We take our partnerships with our brands very seriously,” says Peter. “We want to grow their businesses – and they deserve it.”

“I see the whole business [The Textile Company] as a legacy and a tradition; I’d like it to be here long after I’m gone,” continues Peter. “In the textile business, you’re never going to be a billionaire, but you will make a nice living, dealing with lovely people in a great industry and working with gorgeous product.”