EMPOWERING CREATIVES WITH DIGITAL PRINT TECHNOLOGY
VISIT THE FESPA | GLOBAL PRINT EXPO | MUNICH 2019
It’s not just the high street that has seen a massive reform in the way consumers buy Fashion and Homeware products. Whilst retail giants, large and small have adapted to embrace a new generation of tech savvy consumers, creative digital nomads are also changing the demographic of traditional textiles
Written by: Debbie McKeegan | FESPA | Textile Ambassador
IMAGE CREDIT: KEIGHLEY CLAY SOFT FURNISHINGS DESIGNER
Empowered by digital textile print technologies, Designers are adopting new routes to market for their textile designs
With the evolution of the online product marketplace, came a new era of commercial opportunities for e-commerce entrepreneurs. Offering the creative a myriad of platforms with which to connect to a new breed of buyer whilst enabling designers to sell their patterns as printed products online direct to the consumer. The success stories of such platforms are numerous. The online product marketplace has facilitated a new breed of designer-maker and in doing so has also nurtured commercial confidence within the design community itself. Many fledgling designer brands begin to trade in this format, and once established move on to create their own online identity, websites, and their own independent retail platforms.
Textile buyers for large retailers of both Fashion and Homeware manufacturers have also changed their working practice.
Many now prefer to buy design artwork online. In a fast-paced world of instant trends and customized manufacture, there simply isn’t time to plan seasons ahead. Access to high quality (print ready) design that’s available for instant download is a must have resource for the millennial manufacturer, and online design studios see exponential growth worldwide.
We are also witnessing a new breed of Digital Design Studio.
Selling designs by the metre to Fashion and Home furnishing buyers. Customized manufacture has created an insatiable demand for innovative design, with instant availability. Textile Design studios now offer their patterns as cut-length fabrics or exclusive print-runs to both the Fashion and Home Décor industry.
Some rely on a network of digital textile print bureaus to do so, placing small (10-1000m) orders on demand when orders are received. Others have invested in their own digital print technology and with the advancement of practical, entry-level, affordable machinery this entrepreneurial sector of the creative market place is set for huge growth.
Compared to the traditional manufacturing route, whereby the designer would sell the painted artwork to the buyer who would then have to enable production, this new form of association benefits both sides. The designer gains extra margin by selling fabrics direct, and the buyer has access to thousands of designs that are print ready and available printed onto any fabric, on demand, with no need for an in-house design team. Speeding up the supply chain and offering an efficient sourcing platform.
Fashion designers are also selling direct to the consumer or retailer
Richard Quinn started his company just three years ago. A student of Central St. Martins, London, he embraced digital print technologies during his university education and saw that flexible, in-house manufacturing would allow him to build an independent brand. With the support of the print machine community and its supply chain, he did just that, collaborating with Epson to build his in-house production facility. Quinn has forged a successful, privately owned Fashion empire with worldwide acclaim, even receiving an award from HM the Queen in 2018.
In todays online world anything is possible for the talented creative with the drive to succeed
Keighley Clay began her design career at Liberty. Beginning as an intern she went on to become an in-house textile designer. Learning her trade in one of the UK’s oldest textile manufacturers and alongside a design team with huge knowledge and textile heritage has stood her in good stead. Liberty utilize digital textile technology to facilitate sampling for all their patterns and textile prints, which offers a sustainable solution to textile sampling by saving valuable time in post-production compared to utilizing analogue technology. As a young designer, Keighley also saw the commercial opportunities for her own brand. A talented designer, and alongside her husband, she now runs her own design company and online retail store selling her designs as homeware products worldwide.
Established brands and Textile manufacturers too are embracing Digital Textile technology
As many companies, in Fashion and Home Furnishings struggle to achieve viable margins against buyers expectations, digital technology offers an efficient solution by controlling inventory. Reducing stocks of printed fabrics, and offers diversity and flexible manufacturing. Brands that once outsourced their printed fabrics are now investing in digital textile print technology and re-skilling their workforce to offer their customers in-house print and critically, speed of manufacture. Millennial manufacturing doesn’t allow, nor can it afford, vast stocks. The successful business of the future needs to have a sustainable supply chain if it is to appeal to the modern consumer.
Digital Print Technologies continue to disrupt the print industry worldwide, but we are only at the very beginning of a radical reform in the Textile sector
The Textile Industry is witnessing the beginnings of a shift away from traditional sourcing routes across all sectors of our Industry, from Fashion to Interiors, as our routes to market evolve to meet the needs of a new thirst for customized manufacturing and design diversity
Digitally Printed Textiles represent approximately 7% of our worldwide printed textile market volume. We really are at the very beginnings of a Digital Reform that will offer our industry a creative, sustainable future…
VISIT THE FESPA | GLOBAL PRINT EXPO | MUNICH 2019
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DESIGNER KEIGHLEY CLAY | SOFT FURNISHINGS
Colour Is Too Important to Leave to Chance
Print will always be the part of the garment people see first.
But the sum of all parts — the fabric, the trims, the fasteners, the finish — is what determines whether a design actually delivers on its promise. Brands that continue to treat colour as a single creative decision, rather than a coordinated technical discipline spanning their entire supply chain, will keep paying for it in re-dips, delays, and disappointed design teams.
A Century of Textiles, and an Ever-changing World
Few companies can trace their roots back more than a century and still count themselves among their industry's innovators. Texia, headquartered in Monistrol de Montserrat, Spain, is one of them.
But the story of Texia is not simply one of longevity.
It is a story of continual reinvention. As the textile industry has grown more global and competitive, Texia has repeatedly reshaped its business, investing in technology, developing its own brands, and placing sustainability at the centre of its mission. In doing so, it offers a compelling example of how a heritage manufacturer can lead rather than follow through a period of profound industry change. Image Credit: Texia
What are we craving Ultimately?
The instinct to slow down while simultaneously optimising every measurable aspect of life isn't a passing curiosity. It's a structural response to a world that feels increasingly unstable, and it's reshaping what people expect from their homes, hotels, workplaces and healthcare environments alike.
For the design and manufacturing sectors, this means rethinking both product and process.
The Structual Shift is Real and its Already Here
Volumes are moving east, where digital production is accelerating rapidly. Consumer behaviour has shifted.
Demand is now driven by personalisation, shorter buying cycles, and an expectation of near-instant responsiveness. Regulatory pressure is intensifying, with supply chain transparency now a legal and commercial fact in many markets. And margins? They are under sustained, structural pressure.
This is not a temporary disruption. It is a fundamental reordering of how textile manufacturing must operate.
The Challenge: Standing Firm as the Industry Shifts
The wallpaper landscape has changed dramatically. Digital printing has lowered the barrier to entry, spawning countless direct-to-consumer brands and pushing much of the market towards faster, cheaper production.
At the same time, manufacturing in the UK has grown steadily harder - rising minimum wage, national insurance, energy and substrate costs all bear down on margins. Surface Print have embraced all of these challenges - and stand resolutely prepared for the future.
From Helsinki's printing mill to Paris's Le Marais, discover how Marimekko is scaling a design-led brand with purpose, craft, and bold innovation.
But what makes Marimekko's story compelling is not just its aesthetic legacy?
The word "toxic" carries weight. It conjures danger, harm, and things best avoided.
“Yet in the textile industry - Where between 3,000 and 10,000 chemicals move through the supply chain, a reflexive fear of the term is one of our biggest obstacles to progress.”
This article distils the key takeaways and what buyers, designers, and brands should be asking right now.
What Is the Digital Product Passport?
At its core, a Digital Product Passport is a digital record attached to a physical product - For a printed textile product, this means the DPP would capture data on the substrate, inks and dyes used, the printing process and technology, chemical compliance, environmental impact (including water and energy use), supply chain traceability, and end-of-life instructions.
The Market Gap that Changed Everything
Future Fashion was founded in 2019, timed deliberately to coincide with a pivotal moment in global textile technology: the commercial launch of the EFI Reggiani BOLT Single-Pass digital printing system.
The founders recognised that single-pass architecture had fundamentally changed what was industrially possible - and that Pakistan's domestic market had yet to catch up.
Print is no longer defined by the inefficiencies that once characterised it…as advances in production processes and technology have significantly improved its environmental performance.
Taran Rai, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Epson explains why?
The story of what happens when young designers access digital technology is still being written.
What once was a theoretical sustainability goal seems to have shifted into an active regulatory reality.
Is the Textile Market Finally Recovering?
After a difficult few years, there are genuine reasons for optimism. Duncan was candid about the challenges: "The market for textiles has been very difficult over the last three years. I'm not going to hide the truth there. But the tide is turning.“
A profound shift is currently reshaping the sector
Changing consumer expectations demand greater design diversity, faster turnaround times, and sustainable manufacturing practices.
To thrive, interior brands must adapt their supply chains, bringing production closer to the end consumer and moving away from bulk manufacturing.
Digital textile printing offers a definitive solution to these operational bottlenecks.
Digital transformation doesn't announce itself.
It accumulates - one innovation at a time - until an entire industry looks back and realises the ground has shifted beneath its feet. That's precisely where textiles stands today.
The conversations happening now about AI, automation, sustainability, and digital product passports are not theoretical. They are shaping decisions being made on factory floors and in boardrooms right now.
“By leveraging advanced digital textile printing, Marylene Madou has successfully merged traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology. Her approach offers a blueprint for how independent designers can scale their brands globally while maintaining a minimal environmental footprint.”
The textile industry is undergoing a vital transformation. As the insights from Techtextil and Texprocess reveal, the path forward relies on a combination of sustainable hardware, intelligent chemistry, and seamless digital workflows.
From Zimmer's industrial-scale energy reductions and Stratasys's on-demand 3D embellishments, to Kornit's single-step technical printing and the unified digital ecosystems of NedGraphics and Optitex, the tools for change are here. To stay competitive, brands and manufacturers must adopt these innovations, moving away from fragmented, wasteful processes towards a truly connected, circular economy.
Friedmans stands as a testament to the power of combining traditional textile knowledge with forward-thinking innovation.
“Operating from their UK headquarters, Friedmans now serves a diverse array of sectors, including swimwear, dance, entertainment, sportswear, interior decor, prosthetics, and even pet apparel. With a strategic supply chain that reliably serves clients worldwide”
The apparel decoration industry is decisively moving away from isolated, analogue production tools toward connected digital manufacturing environments.
"Kornit’s unwavering commitment to transformative technology continues to disrupt the status quo. For business leaders and innovators ready to capture the future of apparel manufacturing, the path forward is clear”
The Urgent Need for Sustainability at Scale
The transformation at Coats provides a vital blueprint for the wider textile and apparel sector. True sustainability cannot be achieved in silos. As Dearing emphasised:
“Cross-industry collaboration is the engine of meaningful change. Brands, machinery suppliers, chemical providers, and fibre producers must act as an interconnected ecosystem”
Today’s customers demand superior product quality, real-time data visibility, and lightning-fast turnaround times.
For large-scale garment decorators, managing these expectations while balancing seasonal demand fluctuations - such as the massive surges seen during Black Friday - presents a monumental challenge.
"Relying on transactional vendor relationships and outdated legacy equipment is no longer sufficient to secure long-term stability and growth.”
Printing method is never a secondary detail. It shapes the entire life cycle of a product, from concept to customer. In today’s fashion industry, where margins are tighter and speed matters more than ever, technical knowledge has become a competitive advantage.
“The future of textile design belongs to professionals who can combine creativity with execution, aesthetics with practicality, and vision with production reality”.
