HOW DIGITAL PIGMENT INKS AND TECHNOLOGIES FROM EPSON ARE CHANGING THE FUTURE OF HOME FURNISHINGS

“Epson have rationalised textile manufacturing – their technology is instinctive, intelligent and built to embrace the unparalleled opportunity that the contemporary home textile marketplace now offers. Sustainable production at any volume using technology that’s built to transport the textile industry to a new future.” EPSON

The Home Furnishing marketplace is at the beginning of new period in history.

As an industrial sector producing many billions of metres of printed fabric per year, home textiles are currently predominantly printed using the rotary or flatbed print process. Of all of the ink sets used to manufacture printed textiles, pigment inks remain the largest sector by print volume and offer a significant opportunity for digital disruption with good reason.

Pigments hold properties that have always had a commercial advantage, they require less post-print finishing, and consume less resources than reactive and acid inks by comparison. That said, the traditional pigment rotary or flatbed print route is carbon heavy and consumes large volumes of energy for processing and water for inks and screen washing.

Pigment inks also offer good UV properties for products that are directly exposed to daylight, which is why they are a firm favourite of the home furnishing industry.

The Home Furnishing industry is vast and global, it produces printed textiles for curtains, bedlinens and home accessories, cushions, kitchen textiles etc. and is based on a bedrock of base fabrics whose constructions haven’t change in many years. The marketplace consumes billions of metres of cotton, linen and blended fabrics such as the industry staples poly/cotton or cotton/linen every year. Printing on these cellulose and synthetic blends can only be achieved using pigment inks.

Unlike the fashion industry, the home furnishing marketplace has a unique culture and industry specifications.

Products are expected to last the test of time. The Home Furnishings industry does not have a throw away culture, products are exposed to direct sunlight for years and must be durable. Furnishing fabrics are not generally a throw-away purchase, they are an investment and will not be changed by the season. But even here in the world of Interiors change is afoot and digital technologies offer the solution.

The marketplace is witnessing a period of disruption – as in the fashion world – customization and personalisation are becoming an ever-growing requirement.

Customers want to have a wider variety of choice, there are still perennial collections – but design diversity is an important factor for any brand. Collections are now offered as capsule collections throughout the year. For large buyers and manufacturers, the order volumes are still significant and here rotary may well remain the preferred route for manufacture, especially in the far east, but for the rest of the industry the impetus for digitalization is now high and the opportunities are exemplary.

What’s driving the switch over to the digitally printed production process?

There are a number of factors that are driving the big switch to digital textile printing in the home furnishings sector. The market is changing to meet consumer demand, just as fashion requires less stock the same analogy applies to the furnishings industry and whilst volumes continue to grow alongside population affluence, the number of individual SKU’s also continues to increase. The consumer wants a greater choice, and this requirement has sprung a whole new industry, and a reinvention – for a number of reasons:

Digital textile printing has democratized the sector, the large mills are no-longer the only source of printed production.

Across the globe and on every continent, close proximity production, with a reduced carbon footprint is a growing percentage of printed volume - where the volume can be any meterage, large or small.

The other big switch has been generated by the ease with which digital textile printing can now be adopted. Digital printing technology is now available across a wide spread of machinery – where the machinery takes the best of rotary and repurposes the process digitally for ease of use and commercial opportunity. Thus, spawning a drive to in-house vertical production for many brands, whilst also encouraging many new entrants into the textile printing space.

Epson have been at the forefront of this digital transformation for many years.

Their strategic partnerships with Robustelli and For.tex have ensured that textile efficiency is built into every pixel and every single metre of digital print. The Epson Monna Lisa series has proved to be a technical triumph, and a firm favourite amongst the digital textile community.

Hybrid production has also become a normal currency for printed textiles. Utilising both digital and analogue production many of the large mills now routinely dual source printing process utilizing digital textile printing to meet their customers’ demands – be that speed of delivery or printed order volume.

The Epson range has democratized the textile industry, their digital textile machines are built for high quality production at any volume.

“The recent addition of the ML-8000 machine moves further to empower the textile manufacturer. The machine delivers everything that you would expect from the Epson pedigree, but it’s a smaller machine with a big output and one that will further democratize the textile sector.” EPSON

As we move forward into a new digital era for the industry it’s important to recognize the vast heritage that printed textile production carries forward.

Epson have rationalised textile manufacturing – their technology is instinctive, intelligent and built to embrace the unparalleled opportunity that the contemporary home textile marketplace now offers. Sustainable production at any volume using technology that’s built to transport the textile industry to a new future….