CMYUK TALK ABOUT WHY THEY ARE BEST PLACED TO HELP YOU DISCOVER DIGITAL TEXTILES
Digital Textile Printing offers the established print service provider an incredible opportunity for expansion, as the marketplace for digital textiles continues to grow at a phenomenal rate.
CMYUK talk about the exponential growth expected and why they are best placed to help your business discover a new marketplace.
Image Credit: Hazel Carruthers X CMYUK, CMYUK X MIMAKI TX300P
The reaction to CMYUK’s Décor exhibit at the recent Sign and Digital UK exhibition was exceptional, and points the way forward for new business opportunities for PSP’s.
A recent survey by Smithers Pira highlighted a predicted growth rate for Digital Textile Printing at over 17.5% per annum over the next six years. In this period, the survey forecasts that the total available global market for Digital Textile Printing will more than double from $1.73 billion in 2018 to $3.94 billion in 2023.
To anyone deeply involved within the trade, this growth has been evident for quite some time, encouraging a plethora of small independent print-houses to develop and focus on this sector, alongside the serious mainstream established textile printers that have already started to convert their plants from rotary screen printing to digital.
Just as digital disruption within the Events and Signage industry digitised the graphics workspace, to provide an efficient, speedy and sustainable solution for manufacturing, we are now about to witness the transformation of the printed textile market.
The Fashion, Sportwear and Interior Décor sectors offer exceptional new business opportunities for the PSP.
For Fashion, recognised designers have already started to set up their own print shops, enabling the supply of ‘capsule’ collections with a risk-free ‘no stock’ business model. This points the way forward for many micro-brands and fashion entrepreneurs with web-to-print businesses.
Within these varied business models, clients receive their chosen items within days, paid for in advance via an ecommerce gateway that delivers an excellent ROI to the Designer, or Print Service Provider.
Similarly in Sportswear, state-of-the-art micro-factories and dye-sub printers are now combining customised pattern making software with laser cutting and automated sewing, to enable the Sportwear Industry to keep up with the Millennial generation’s insatiable demand for customisation and personalisation.
Within the Interior Décor Sector, where the path to customisation was first opened up by the extraordinary growth in demand for bespoke wallpaper murals for domestic and contract use, we now see exponential growth in customised contract fabric printing.
As a result, interior designers and curtain makers, have made the move to customised fabric printing, and are increasingly utilising the speed and creativity enabled by the facility of Digital Textile Printing, to give their schemes and product ranges the individuality and exclusivity so popular with their cliental.
Taken in the round, all this adds up to an extraordinarily vibrant eco-system, where as demand increases, machinery and systems are increasingly available across a wide range of prices and performances.
So, from the existing Print Service Provider’s point of view, whilst looking for new business opportunities, the growth of Digital Textile Printing presents an unrivalled opportunity to re-focus and bolt-on a profitable new dynamic to their businesses, leveraging many core production skills from prepress, colour management, digital printer operation and finishing.
Making the move now, will re-invigorate their commercial offer, and will enable them to participate in the enormous growth that is forecast for Digital Textile Printing over the next five years.
CMYUK
T: 0118 989 2929
E: sales@cmyuk.com
![EDMUND BELL [PRINTLAB]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a802676b7411c2497540b80/1535628933285-QO8QXRA0U6Z52VO6DBWR/EDMUND+BELL-PRINTLAB-TEXINTEL.jpg)
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.”
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 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”.
Are we witnessing the reinvention of Merch driven by adaptive, digital technologies?
The commercial opportunity presented by printed, personalised merchandise is already a lucrative revenue stream; it is the core driver of growth in a multi-billion-pound industry. And the mandate for print businesses is clear: automate, adapt, and offer undeniable added value, or choose to gradually lose market share.
Powderless DTF is an important area of innovation. It deserves research, investment, and thoughtful development.
“But at its current stage, it often feels like the industry is attempting to commercialize the concept ahead of the underlying chemistry and system readiness”.
All Apparel Manufacturers face an Urgent Mandate: “Automate or be Left Behind”.
Industry leaders like Super Nova Sports and Ryozo International were struggling with severe pre-press bottlenecks and unsustainable fabric waste. By integrating AI Sublimation Software into their workflows, these forward-thinking businesses eliminated manual variable data entry, boosted fabric efficiency to over 80%, and reduced delivery times by more than half, establishing a highly profitable, agile, and environmentally responsible production model.
The Future of Manufacturing belongs to those who Embrace Connected Digital Ecosystems
“Whether you produce garments, car interiors, or home furnishings, the transition from creative concept to production-ready product often remains fragmented. Design teams work tirelessly to develop compelling materials, yet technical teams struggle to interpret these visions without losing data along the way.”
The European digital wallcovering marketplace is expanding at an impressive rate.
“For print professionals and interior designers, this transition presents a distinct set of challenges. Achieving flawless colour consistency, managing complex substrates, and meeting stringent environmental standards are no longer optional extras; they are fundamental requirements for commercial success.”
If you're looking to optimize your website for AI search, hang onto your cowboy hat. It's the Wild West out there. Former (and current) SEO companies see the handwriting on the wall as more search moves from traditional SEO to AEO (answer engine optimisation). Opportunists are popping out of the woodwork.
(There are good options out there, but vet them carefully.)
A swimsuit might start life as a sketch. By the time it reaches the shop floor, dozens of hands have touched it - designers, dye houses, printers, trim manufacturers, quality controllers. Each one interprets colour in their own way, under their own conditions, with their own tools. The result is often a product that looks nothing like the original vision.