The internet did little to disrupt it. Globalization could not shut it down. But while the McCall Pattern Company, the home-sewing brand founded in 1863, may seem like a business that time forgot, it finds itself newly fashionable.

The company's headquarters have the look of a corporate environment in the days before digital culture banished clutter. There on the 34th floor of the Equitable Building, a 1915 skyscraper in Manhattan's financial district, you will find rooms filled with buttons and zippers, bolts of fabric on work tables and metal file drawers stuffed with paper pattern packets.

There is a patternmaking room, where muslin is fitted to dress forms; a dressmaking room, where women at sewing machines make sample garments; and a photo studio, where models pose for simple shoots that emphasize the clothes, rather than sex or sizzle.

For the 80 or so employees, home sewing is not so much a retro thing as it is a timeless pursuit.

"I've done this long enough to know that people have it in their hearts," said Carolyne Cafaro, the creative director. "There could be one pattern company left in the world, but I do think people will always sew."