Griswold Textile Print, an 88-year-old Rhode Island screen-printing facility, is closing its doors. In an email obtained by Business of Home, the long-running company recently informed customers that it is rushing to complete its open orders before May 30, after which it will shutter permanently.

The note referred to “unforeseen circumstances,” but did not elaborate on the reason for the shutdown. Representatives for Griswold did not reply to requests for comment by press time.

Griswold may not be a household name in the industry, but the facility quietly hand-printed fabrics for many who are. A 2015 article in local lifestyle publication So Rhode Island outlined the company’s history, highlighting work it had done for Clarence House, Duralee, and Brunschwig & Fils.

“Some of Brunschwig’s best-selling fabrics were printed there,” says Scott Kravet, chief creative officer of Kravet, which acquired Brunschwig & Fils in 2011. “They had a great color kitchen, did everything by hand—there’s not many people left who take that approach.”

Less advertised was Griswold’s work for individual designers, who frequently relied on the company to produce intricate patterns and lush, detailed chintzes for their own collections. “It’s a huge loss,” says Sebastian Varney, the president of Dorothy Draper & Company. “We have prints with them that they’ve produced since the 1980s and even before. They were a great operation, great to work with, and did some amazing fabrics.”

Founded in 1937, Griswold went through a variety of incarnations over the years, but remained family-owned until the end. As mass textile production migrated overseas during the offshoring wave of the 1980s and ’90s, the company maintained a niche at the high end, sending sales reps to the D&D Building to drum up business in the trade. Its operations were verticalized—the company could print, age and finish fabrics in-house, producing quantities as little as 25 yards, making it a favorite of boutique brands.

Griswold’s closure puts those same brands in a tight spot, as they look to find another facility to produce their wares. Kravet says that his company will tap its network of producers to find a replacement for Brunschwig & Fils patterns. “We’ll look to see if we can emulate them by hand, or with digital—those are your options today,” he explains. “We have good printers around the world. We’ll figure it out.”

For customers looking for a producer that takes the same labor-intensive, by-hand approach to screen printing, the pool of options is getting shallower every year. “It’s getting harder and harder to find a great screen printer,” says Varney. “There are others, but Griswold was the oldest of the American companies, and we had the longest relationship with them. It’s the end of an era, and very sad. They made a lovely chintz.”