Epson and designer Yuima Nakazato unveil refiberised fashion collection

Epson has announced the release of a new collection from renowned Japanese fashion designer Yuima Nakazato and his eponymous YUIMA NAKAZATO brand in partnership with Epson at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week at the Palais de Tokyo.

For the most part, the new collection has been created using a combination of Epson's more sustainable digital textile printing technology and Epson’s dry fibre technology, which is used commercially to recycle paper and requires virtually no water to produce. It has been adapted to produce new non-woven refiberised fabric from used and discarded garments.

This experimental fabric production process was first revealed in January this year as part of a three-year collaboration between Epson and YUIMA NAKAZATO. For the show in July, Epson 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.

As the new collection was revealed, Epson and YUIMA NAKAZATO also raised awareness of the water and material waste associated with traditional and excessive garment production.

The Paris Show illustrated 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.
The new couture range displayed at the Palais de Tokyo was printed using the Epson ML-13000. This is a prototype and highly flexible direct-to-fabric digital textile printer capable of achieving vivid colours with pigment inks on a wide variety of fabrics and surfaces.

The fabric taken to create the new YUIMA NAKAZATO fashion line was derived from material from used garments sourced from Africa, the destination for many discarded garments from elsewhere.

Nakazato visited Kenya, where he purchased around 150 kg of used garments destined for the many "clothes mountains" that comprise discarded Western garments. Epson then applied its dry refiberisation process to the waste material, producing over 150 metres of non-woven fabric. It was then printed using pigment inks by Epson's Monna Lisa digital printing technology.
"Although in its early stages, Epson believes its dry fibre technology combined with pigment ink digital printing could offer the fashion industry a much more sustainable future, significantly reducing water use while allowing designers the freedom to fully express their creativity,” explains Hitoshi Igarashi from Epson's Printing Solutions Division.

"Since January this year, Epson has continued to make significant advances in the quality and printability of refiberised fabric. It is now less dense, tougher and much more flexible, making it better suited for printing using Epson's Monna Lisa direct-to-fabric digital textile printer. The fabric used this time was much thinner than before, leading to a 37.5 per cent weight reduction from 160 g/sqm previously to 100 g/sqm now,” Igarashi continues.

The ML-13000 significantly contributes to reducing the environmental footprint. It uses a pigment ink process that leads to a 96 per cent reduction in water use compared to dye-based inks. It has also increased productivity by 300 per cent compared to conventional production processes thanks to an inline solution involving built-in pre- and post-printing processes.

"The prototype ML-13000 is capable of printing not just ink but also three different types of liquid onto fabric simultaneously, thereby enhancing brilliance, durability, and flexibility. Epson has utilised this printer to print on fabric with an optimised balance of ink and liquids. This innovation achieves quick production, reducing water usage and saving energy use. This initiative shows how discarded garments can be upcycled into new types of clothing thanks to the combination of YUIMA NAKAZATO's creativity and Epson technology. Epson's Environmental Vision commits us to contributing to a circular economy, and this development could be one step towards achieving this. Although still at the experimental stage with textiles, we believe dry fibre technology has tremendous potential for making the fashion industry more sustainable,” concluded Igarashi.