Fashion at the Click of a Button

The speed at which consumers can order fashion items online is in great contrast with speed at which they are produced. The truth behind the apparel production process is miles away from being fast.

Textile production is a complex and energy consuming process, with traditional production turn-around times for a collection at best being 20 weeks for production once the item has been ordered. In addition, large quantities must be produced in order to make production cycles financially viable.

Fashion changes yearly, monthly and even faster. To cope with such changes, retailers have to adopt a leaner approach to ask to how they handle their stock. The changing face of retail and the pace of fast fashion makes holding large quantities is riskier than ever.

Digital printing is revolutionizing the traditional supply chain model. Both online and instore retailers can take advantage of the fact that smaller stocks are now real and commercially viable options. Perhaps the greatest advantage is the flexibility that comes with digital printing. Retailers can control exactly what and how much they produce. Speed to market and reduced risk provided by flexibility and printing on demand.

The gap between ecommerce and production can now be closed and the benefits are numerous.

Digital printing facilitates the quick turn-around times and rapid prototyping that are crucial for today’s designers. Online retailers will be able to identify the demand for a certain item, market it, get orders, sell it and then go ahead and produce it — turning the supply chain on its head and effectively reversing the production cycle.

But more than that, they can enter into completely new market offerings — customization and personalization, perhaps the biggest advantage of the digital fashion industry as opposed to traditional production methods.

With digital printing the minimum order quantity is one piece.

People have always wanted to find the balance between being trendy and being unique. With digital fashion, each piece can be unique, and with it each Fashionista can be unique, too.

Kornit Digital (Booth 1617) produces two types of digital textile printers: Machines that print directly on ready-made garments (Direct-to-Garment or DTG), as well as printers that print directly on fabric (Direct-to-Fabric roll-to-roll printers). Digital textile printing is bringing the decorating of garments closer to the consumer making short delivery times a reality. Whereas the actual fabric or plain T-shirt will still be produced in a developing country, Kornit’s DTG printers enable printing on garments and fabrics locally, which can then be fulfilled in a very short period of time.

Kornit’s digital textile printers provides the flexibility to produce runs of any length, starting with one piece. Using Kornit’s NeoPigment printing process, single step production
can be achieved using natural fibers, synthetics and blends. The resource-efficient technology is eco-friendly, suitable for local production requirements and can cut costs for textile companies.