Ink World staff11.10.20
Mimaki USA announced its first fashion collaboration to bring design label, threeASFOUR, Spring 2021 collection to life.
Recently, the threeASFOUR Vesica Piscis Spring 2021 Ready-To-Wear collection was featured on Vogue’s virtual runway for fashion week. This most recent collection fuses the love of sacred geometry with an examination of nature.
To bring this collection to the runway, Mimaki Senior Textile Segment Specialist Victoria Nelson Harris worked very closely with the threeASFOUR team to successfully reproduce the intricacy of each design, while maintaining the form and function of the fabric to complement the overall design of each garment.
Brit Shaked, another Vesica Piscis collection collaborator, introduced Mimaki to the threeASFOUR principles, Adi Gil and Gabriel Asfour.
Shaked, while working on her Fashion Masters Project at Fashion Institute of Technology, worked with Victoria and initiated the introduction.
By relying on digital printing, the avant-garde threeASFOUR trio pushed its experimental tendencies, to flawlessly execute their recognizably complex sculptural patterns using Mimaki’s complete workflow of textile equipment.
Since one workflow will not work for all textile types, multiple print technologies and workflows were employed.
Different combinations of ink, print technology and finishing equipment were utilized based on fabric type. Transfer dye sublimation was primarily used for printing the wearable leggings and other poly/lycra apparel, whereas direct-to-textile printing was used on the natural fibers, including cotton and silk.
Engineered for small, high-quality runs, Harris selected the TS300P-1800 and the TS55-1800, transfer dye-sublimation printers, to produce multiple polyester fabrics for the collection.
The Tx300P-1800 MkII, a direct-to-fabric hybrid printer launched in 2019, was used to create cotton and canvas accessories to further complement the collection.
Due to the wide range of textiles selected for the collection, the Tx300P-1800 MkII was set with both textile pigment ink and reactive ink used to print directly on cotton and silk fabrics.
Central to this project, Harris employed the Tiger-1800B MkII printer with reactive inks, designed to support high volume printing.
The more airy and lighter pieces of the threeASFOUR collection were printed on the Tx300P-1800B, with an acid ink setup for direct printing on silk. Both the Tiger-1800B MkII and Tx300P-1800B have an incorporated sticky belt, which stabilizes thinner fabrics such as silk, sateen and stretchy blends, to ensure accurate ink drop position and continuous printing.
In addition to these wide-format textile printers, Mimaki counted on its Rimslow Series of pre-treatment and post-treatment equipment to coat, wash and steam the fabrics, as needed.
Pre-treatment coating serves to control ink penetration, density and the dyeing properties of inks on various fabrics. Dependent on the fabric type and ink combination, coating processes are initiated before printing and steaming after to affix the dyes onto the fabric. Washing is used as a final process to eliminate leftover pre-treatment and ink.
