Kornit Digital Rewrites Rules for Fashion, Textiles at Kornit Fashion Week Tel Aviv

Kornit Digital Ltd. announced the company will present the convergence of design, technology, and sustainable fashion at Kornit Fashion Week Tel Aviv 2022, April 3-6.

Rewriting the rules for fashion and textiles, the transformative event will unveil vibrant runway collections together with industry-first product and technology introductions that bring digital production to the mainstream.

The four-day event is attended by some of the top designers, retailers, brands, fulfillers, and ecommerce players, in addition to global investors and press – and will include exclu-sive VIP experiences demonstrating the confluence of the design, technology, and fashion worlds. Together, these three elements are central to Kornit’s 4.0 strategy, bringing sus-tainable, on-demand fashion to the mainstream with end-to-end workflow solutions.

The week follows successful Kornit events in 2021 across Los Angeles, New York, Milan, and Tel Aviv, displaying the creative freedom associated with sustainable, on-demand fashion fulfillment.

Attendees will experience runway events showcasing designer creativity across a broad array of collections. These collections were created in just a few weeks, unlike typical fash-ion and textile production processes that take over six months.

Collections highlight the liberation from inefficient, costly, and wasteful production pro-cesses, as well as long lead times and supply chain constraints. The power of on-demand production also drives creation of the most imaginative collections.

Looking behind the scenes at Kornit Fashion Week, attendees will witness Kornit’s disrup-tive mass production technology in action. Unveiled for the first time, the Kornit Apollo direct-to-garment (DTG) system addresses accelerated post-pandemic market trends for streamlined supply chains and production nearshoring.

Demonstrated at an exclusive VIP event, Kornit Apollo features the company’s MAX tech-nology offering the highest retail quality combined with full automation control and inte-grated smart curing processes, utilizing functionality from Lichtenau, Germany-based Tesoma (Kornit’s recently announced acquisition).

The solution is the most comprehensive digital, single-step end-to-end system for near-shore short-and-medium-runs mass production and offers optimal TCO and highest out-put per operator. The result far surpasses performance of screen printing and analog techniques. With early customer engagements in the second half of 2022, the system will be available mid-2023.

According to a pre-COVID survey published by McKinsey & Co., a majority of US apparel executives projected that over 20% of their sourcing volumes would come from nearshore production by 2025, indicating a major shift to demand-focused apparel value chains.

Based on post-COVID supply chain disruptions, dynamics of digitization, automation, lean inventory management, and sustainability, Kornit sees an acceleration of this trend and projects the shift will be much more significant in volume and speed, especially in the ap-parel categories that are relevant for the company’s DTG solutions.

“These accelerating shifts to nearshore and short- and medium-run production, in addi-tion to the breakthrough digital advancements we are introducing with Apollo, should allow Kornit to address significantly more of the annual global decorated apparel jobs, generating a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for our customers and partners,” said Ronen Samuel, CEO at Kornit Digital.

“The fashion and textile industry is at a critical inflection point,” added Samuel. “As the design, technology, and fashion worlds converge, there’s a tremendous opportunity now created. Kornit is writing the operating system for fashion – and today, we are introducing game-changing technology for mass production that will offer a powerful alternative to screen printing.”

“Producers and creators are increasingly shifting to nearshore and onshore production,” said Omer Kulka, chief marketing officer at Kornit Digital. “Our upcoming Kornit Apollo solution comes at the right time for the industry and our customers. This allows both current and future customers to take advantage of these market trends, opens new markets for Kornit, and will drive new customer adoption. The Kornit Apollo technology directly addresses the industry needs, and we believe it will increase our market reach.”

Also unveiled will be the Kornit Atlas MAX Poly DTG production system – the industry-first high-volume digital decoration solution for polyester and polyester-blended apparel. Approximately 16% of global t-shirt volume is estimated to be polyester, representing the second-largest segment of this category.

As the fashion and sport apparel markets come together, a significant new opportunity for fashion on polyester is emerging. Kornit Atlas MAX Poly now creates new possibilities in an industry where black and greys are the norm. For the first time ever, the recreational sportswear, promotional, and sports brand market can capitalize on a wide range of color-ful designs to inject new life into their apparel.

The solution additionally incorporates Kornit’s XDi decorative applications, creating new styles for multiple effects and unlimited combinations such as threadless embroidery, high-density vinyl, screen transfer emulations, and 3D simulation.

Available in the second quarter of 2022, this newest entry into the Kornit MAX portfolio removes barriers associated with polyester production, ensuring high quality and durabil-ity while setting benchmarks for creativity and productivity.