JoAnn Fabrics fans seek to stitch void left by private equity with crafts co-op

People shop at a JoAnn Fabric as the store is set to close after filing for bankruptcy on 7 March 2025 in Paramus, New Jersey. Photograph: Michael Bocchieri/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenPeople shop at a JoAnn Fabric as the store is set to close after filing for bankruptcy on 7 March 2025 in Paramus, New Jersey. Photograph: Michael Bocchieri/Getty ImagesBusinessJoAnn Fabrics fans seek to stitch void left by private equity with crafts co-opUS crafters are looking to build a communal network to replace the company after it was bankrupted by private equity investors in 2025

To its dedicated fans, JoAnn Fabrics wasn’t just a fabric store. It was a vital hub for small businesses – wedding dress makers, upholsters, milliners and rug repairers. It taught generations to make, fix and craft. A visit sparked new ideas in a way that shopping online just can’t replicate.

Since it became one of hundreds of US companies bankrupted by private equity investors in 2025, it has been sorely missed.

Its rise and fall, from a Cleveland, Ohio, store founded by German immigrants in the 1940s to the 800-store chain closed by Leonard Green & Partners, has been memorialized in videos and Halloween costumes.

View image in fullscreenJoann Fabrics has been sorely missed since going out of business in 2025. Photograph: Michael Siluk/AlamyBut what was declared dead may not be gone forever. JoAnn’s dedicated followers are trying to figure out a way to bring the essence of the store back, minus the investors who gutted the company.

“The ultimate big dream is to try to create an ecosystem that connects all of these people in the crafting world,” said Sandy McClenahan, 35, a legal assistant, hat maker and former tech industry relationship manager. “The model we’re investigating is how member-owned and/or worker-owned co-ops can help do that.”

McClenahan published a survey last month suggesting a call to action: “A craft and fabric co-op, owned by us.” The post got hundreds of responses, including one person from every US state and 30 who wanted to be founding members.

It wouldn’t be just about buying fabrics, McClenahan added. The goal is to preserve individually owned businesses and the skills owners have. “How can we create an ecosystem that helps all of these crafts stay afloat and not get eaten up by private equity?’”

In an era of brutal private equity cost-cutting, ballooning corporate monopolies and shrinking consumer power, the notion of a communal movement replacing JoAnn, which earned more than $2bn in annual revenue in its last good years, may seem like a naive idea or an arcane curiosity. But businesses that prioritize users and workers’ over profits are not only deeply embedded in US history, they are growing and thriving as a reaction to the current state of US capitalism, cooperative specialists say.

“People don’t want to feel that the economy is something that’s being done to them,” said Julie Bosland, the head of the Cooperative Development Foundation, a national non-profit.

Like publicly traded companies, these entities invest and earn revenues, Bosland said, but they use that capital as a means to grow a business “that serves the members and the community”.

Worker-backed cooperatives are growing particularly fast in the US, more than doubling from 315 firms in 2014 to 820 in 2024, in part because of drivers’ cooperatives, or driver-owned rideshare platforms. They join about 30,000 other US cooperatives, including brand names like REI, Ace Hardware and Land O’Lakes, as well as purchasing groups that dominate the farming business and credit unions for employees of corporate giants like Boeing.