Epson & Japanese Fashion Designer Partner On Sustainable Fashion
Digital printer manufacturer Epson has adapted its dry fibre technology, which is used to recycle paper and requires virtually no water to produce to produce new nonwoven re-fiberised fabric from used and discarded garments.
“The new collection will illustrate how switching to digital textile printing using more sustainable pigment inks offers the fashion industry a less wasteful and more environmentally responsible means of textile printing,” Epson said in a press release.
The fabric taken to create the new collection was derived from material in used garments sourced from Africa.
Epson then applied its dry re-fiberisation process to the waste material which resulted in the production of over 150 metres of nonwoven fabric, which was then printed on using pigment inks by Epson’s Monna Lisa digital printing technology.
The new collection has been created, in most part, using a combination of Epson’s more sustainable digital textile printing technology and a new fabric production process.
This experimental fabric production process was first revealed in January this year as part of three-year collaboration between Epson and fashion designer Yuima Nakazato.
Epson further progressed this partnership with Yuima Nakazato by creating an exciting new couture collection that was displayed during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week.
The partnership has made further significant advances to the quality of the fabric, making it thinner, more flexible and much easier to print on using Epson’s sustainable Monna Lisa direct-to-fabric digital textile printing technology.
