About Us

Here is a snippet from our interview with ‘The Good Company’ on ‘Rediscovering Ilford Town Centre’ on how we accidentally started selling fabrics:
Keith Bentley – ‘An Uncle of mine was in this trade, mending sewing machines in factories. He used to repair machines from home and from a small shop.

I used to help him sometimes on Sundays, at family get-togethers. I’d go over over with my mum when I was about nineteen and help him mend machines in the garden. He’d go on and on, “Come to work for me, come to work for me”. So I finally did relent and I started working for him. Of course, what he did was alien to what I knew. I didn’t particularly know much about it when I started.’

“When I used to go round the factories, we’d have a cutting table and cut the fabric out in quantities, and surplus fabrics at the time were stacked under the cutting table. I used to scrounge bits for testing machines and cleaning machines, to use as cloths, and once I’d brought some back to the shop, around here there used to be several big factories, Ilford Film was opposite, for example, and there were clothing factories at the end of the road, so there were lots of women workers that would pass our shop.

Once when I was unloading bits of fabric from the factories, one of the ladies stopped and said, “How much is that piece?” and I said “What’re you talking about?” and she wanted to buy some of this stuff from the factory. So I said, “Oh I don’t know.” and she said “Oh about two bob”. I said “Give me one and six then”.

So she bought this bit of fabric. And that’s how I got into going and getting stuff from the factories and selling it. We used to have a little table and the ladies used to come in when they wanted to make a skirt, or a top, or a blouse, and really that’s how we got into fabrics.”

Fast forward to 1999, we moved into what we now call home, at 4-6 Chapel Road, in our double sided shop, to fit Sewing Machines, Fabrics, Haberdashery all under one roof!

We’re now really excited about selling online and sharing our knowledge and expertise with our customers. With our in-house team we have a lot of experience which you won’t find anywhere else!

At Regent Home of Sewing we’re like a big family and we all support each other and make sure our service and quality is unmatched in the industry. This is why we’re so confident that once you buy from us you will come back for more!