To understand TechStyles, an international manufacturer and supplier of performance fabrics, you have to know a little about its parent company, AFF | Group, formerly American Foam & Fabrics.
Originally founded in 1990, American Foam & Fabrics manufactured interiors for after-market cars. It wasn’t until Ben Leinster took over the company from his stepfather in 2018 that the company made considerable leaps in innovation and scope.
“One night I’m having dinner with my stepdad,” Leinster says, “and he said he was thinking about selling the company. I already had a job, I was practicing law, but I said, ‘What if I bought if from you?’ and six months later I bought it from him, brought in a young team and asked, ‘What can we do with this?’ My approach was to professionalize and build on what my stepdad had brought from nothing up to a pretty decent-sized business.”
The answer was simple: listen to the customers and address their issues with industry-wide problems like rising costs, longer lead times, higher minimums, product availability and inconsistent quality.
In order to deal with those issues, Leinster and his team created the TechStyles division and brought in Chris Collins to serve as managing director.
Under Collins’ leadership, TechStyles helped AFF | Group consolidate its operations and launched two new products: The Foundation Collection and TechArt.
The Foundation Collection is completely in-house coated fabric upholstery that comes in six performance lines, 168 colors and a wide variety of textures and designs. TechArt offers digitally-coated fabric that can be ordered online through a digital storefront. Customers can choose from developed designs or upload their own image for printing.
That’s a lot of information, but Collins breaks it down with a real-world example:
“Let’s say McDonald’s or Chick-fil-A wanted to re-do their booths on a local level,” he says. “Where competitors might take 8-12 weeks to get product in with very limited options, we would be able to say, ‘Give us a concept,’ we would be able to print all of your upholstery for your dining rooms, on a by-store basis, so you don’t have to do it for all of them, in 24 hours, competitively-priced. By bringing digital technology into mass production, we have the ability to mass produce but the agility to adjust.”
Leinster says that this new emphasis on innovation is important to him because it keeps his family company, and this region, competitive in an industry that it once ruled.
“Historically, this was the center of the universe for textiles until the ‘70s and ‘80s, so for me, it’s personal,” he says. “It’s 30 years of family history in the industry.”
Fast facts:
- Before he took over AFF | Group, Ben Leinster was a successful attorney.
- AFF | Group and TechStyles serve over 50 countries around the world.
- TechStyles serves various markets, including hospitality, residential, office, health care, marine and transportation.
