Prompt.ly – Next Gen Garment Coloration

The apparel industry has entered the age of “Fast Fashion”, where turn-around times and customization are key to market success.  Being able to respond quickly to fickle consumer trends will provide a decisive competitive advantage in the apparel sector to both manufacturers and retailers. The use of ink-jet printing technology to accelerate garment sample development and facilitate faster and more cost-effective small-scale production runs shows great promise.   This type of printing is known as direct to garment (or DTG) printing.  Additionally, the use of DTG printing to print onto premade garments will result in significant time and cost savings over current production methods, because DTG printing can be applied on garments at, or very close to, the point of sale.

The customized apparel space is a billion-dollar market in the U.S. alone. The market for customized apparel is set to grow significantly over the next few years as consumers are offered more opportunities to order something unique. In addition, this presents an ideal opportunity for brands to respond to online one-off orders instantly and to not hold inventory but rather, print on demand.

However, current DTG printers are limited to printing an image, pattern or block of colour onto only a single surface of a garment, such as a T-shirt.  As such, current DTG printers are used to embellish part of one surface of a garment and cannot currently be effectively used to provide a pattern or colour across an entire garment’s outer surface.  There remains a need to provide a solution that can deliver seamless and fully-aligned patterns across the surface of a garment.  This will enable manufacturers and retailers to respond very quickly to changing fashion trends and demands on a more local level, potentially resulting in greater profit and less wastage of materials.

Prompt.ly technology, developed at Twinery, will enable MAS to meet these new demands and offer added value to our customers. Prompt.ly consists of proprietary, patent-pending hardware, software and chemical digital printing solutions that work together to deliver wrap-around seamless printing on garments, across all types of materials. Digital printing is far more environmentally friendly than the traditional screen and roller printing, as the energy and water requirements are only a fraction of that of analog printing techniques. This will keep with MAS’ goals of sustainable development and environmental stewardship whilst delivering a truly innovative solution to our customers around the globe. We at Twinery are excited to bring this new technology into the market and look forward to seeing our customers reap the benefits.