Printer manufacturer Epson and Japanese fashion designer Yuima Nakazato presented a jointly developed new technology for the production of nonwovens at the Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week for spring/summer 2023.
The Epson Dry Fiber technology, by means of which paper that has already been used in the form of the Epson PaperLab is recycled almost entirely without the use of water, has been further developed so that printable nonwovens can now also be produced from used clothing.
The material from which Yuima Nakazato’s latest creations are made comes from worn garments from Africa, the terminus of many used clothes from all over the world. During a visit to Kenya, Nakazato collected around 150 kilograms of old clothes that would otherwise have ended up in landfills there. Using Epson’s Dry Fiber process, more than 50 meters of new non-woven fabric were obtained, part of which was processed with pigment inks using the Epson Monna-Lisa industrial textile printer. This new textile production process was developed as part of a three-year collaboration between Epson and Yuima Nakazato in Paris. The results were first seen at the designer’s fashion show at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo on January 25, 2023.
The main aim of the new technology is to save water. In Paris, for example, the aim was to show how the fashion industry can print textiles in a more sustainable and resource-saving manner by switching to digital textile printing with environmentally friendly pigment inks.
Hitoshi Igarashi from Epson’s printing technology department on Dry Fiber technology: “Although Dry Fiber is still in its infancy, we are already convinced that this technology, combined with digital pigment ink printing, opens up a sustainable future for the fashion industry. Dry Fiber significantly reduces water consumption while giving designers the freedom to express their creativity when combined with digital textile printing.”