Over-Consumption and Over-Production Will Have No Place in New Economy

How would you describe the pace of change in textile printing (screen and digital)? Is it moving at a frenetic pace, or is it slow and steady?
Digital printing has been around in textile for nearly two decades but now it matures enough to enter volume production. There are still some major bottlenecks which are resolved step by step. Pigments inks that are working without pre-treatment are one of the issues, but solutions become better and are comparable to the ones from rotary screen printing. This will simplify the process and reduce many steps and products but also energy and water.

Which of the two is more likely: will printing technologies change the way the fashion/textile industry is shaping up, or will fashion trends (especially movement against fast fashion as also material innovations) dictate the way printing is done? Doesn't the latter seem more likely?
I think it is the European Commission that will streamline the fashion/textile industry by passing Green Deal legislation which will be acceptable for sales within Europe. Naturally, the EU’s approach is much broader than printing, inks or chemicals. It looks at each step and the circular economy behind the products. Another example of a technological response is stitching with nylon threads which can be dissolved via heat without destroying the textile materials for recycling. Remember, the biggest changes will follow from the shift from linear to circular economy.

Has the direct-to-garment (DTG) segment grown according to industry expectations? If volumes are low, then this segment can't grow. And if fast fashion is to be curbed, then this segment will be the first to be affected. Your comments, please.
DTG continues to grow, also in terms of sustainability. The advantage here is that confection is done before decoration which limits the complexity. The decoration is also only a limited percentage of the whole textile surface. Nevertheless, screen printing still plays a capital role within this segment. We have seen developments of water-based pigments inks and special mesh (e.g. by Sefar) which helps to reduce the ink use with 30% and solves also the biggest problem of the quick drying of the inks on the mesh.

The company Virus Inks from Italy has developed water-based and no-dry screen printing inks which are PVC-, phthalate- and formaldehyde-free. They use the WOW (wet-on-wet printing). On the top of this, they developed a black ink from recycled inks. New developments such as DTF (direct-to-film) are also more sustainable and an excellent solution for DTG. I believe that DTG segment is going to be one of the first segments within the textile industry to fulfil the Green Deal.

An extension of this would be on-demand printing. How is ESMA gearing up its members to cash in on this as the trend picks up momentum? Opinion is divided over whether on-demand printing will make people more circumspect, or drive mindless consumption. What is your take?
First of all, when we look at the EU and UN agendas, one of the first things they will tell is that the consumer will have to adapt as much as the industry. Over-consumption and over-production will have no place in the new economy. The consumer can see this already now as many brands promote new models of buying or leasing clothes or even shoes: Buying with a repair/return option and renting within a certain time frame of the life cycle of the textile product. The main goal is again becoming circular and not contributing to the growing landfills.

Also, brands will have to avoid overstocking and the typical end of season sales. Print-on-demand will be a trend within certain segments as people are adapting to different pricing between a traditional in-store purchase and an on-demand production. Probably we will observe this with luxury products that offer more possibilities of unique design of all details (including stitching, buttons, zippers) and this is how we get closer to the near-shoring effect and micro factories.

What kind of technological advancements are we going to see in both conventional as well as digital printing in the coming years?
Overall, both technologies are working to the maximum but screen has to make rapid changes to prove its sustainability potential and keep its market share. Concerning digital printing which is still the smaller part in the global production, it is important to keep convincing the conservative textile market on the potential and reliability but even more on the flexibility of this technology for the future. We see an interesting approach with digital technology in textile dyeing which saves enormous amounts of water and energy. We have seen also thread printing for optimised embroidery solutions or thread colouring for making colour specific threads. The thread printing for weaving is not yet possible but this would simplify weaving in the future.

What kind of innovations are we likely to see in terms of inks? Do you see enough R&D work in the development of new-generation inks?
As mentioned before, pigment inks which are water-based will be necessary for either technology to potentially eliminate pre-treatment and optimise post-treatment. The inks will be free of PVC, phthalate and formaldehyde and fulfil all other European regulations. During our latest TPS conference, it was very clear that inks are re-developed in this way and they also become more efficient to print better with less resources. The post and pre-treatment is either to be avoided or optimised to reduce material loss, ink and energy and – most importantly—water usage. For screen printing, we see the use of automated colour kitchens with improved recycling and waste reduction of mixed ink paste or spot colours.