In this Tech Talk report, Adam Balkin looks at how an Epson printer is helping fashion designers get their designs off the computer and into a finished garment.

Just like you might print a document or photo for work or school, every single one of the outfits in this room was printed. Well, the patterns and colors on the outfits, think of the fabric as the paper you and I would use. 

Epson held its Digital Couture Fashion Week event to show off its SureColor F-series high end printers for fabric. Each little stage featured creations by a different designer via the printer.

 “You can work on a computer, create an file you can come up with, any design you can come up with, photography, designs, patterns, all kinds of things are now available to the artist,” says Mark Radogna of Epson “And you print directly onto a special paper using a special ink that’s part of our printer.  That paper is then applied to the fabric, any polyester fabric, and it’s basically run through a special heat press, kind of like a large iron. And what’s cool is when the reaction’s happens you’re done, you’re finished. You can now cut and sew the fabric into a finished garment."

It typically takes about a day to print a single piece of cloth.

Designers say one of the big draws to this new way of doing things, because printing is so relatively quick and inexpensive, it allows them to be more creative, try more things that may or may not work.

 “For sure, it would be faster for me to go get a “strike off,” designer Cristina Ruales says. “That’s the word we use for sort of like a trial. Be able to comment and turn it around would only take the time it would be for them to make the adjustments on the computer."

 “It was always my idea to put my artwork on the designs and the colors were not as vibrant, the details were kind of lost and now with that new technology, it really allows me to even print in larger sizes than I thought was possible and still get that crisp detail and the vibrancy of color that I’m looking for,” designer Chloe Trujillo says.

Right now, again, the printer only works on polyester. Epson says it is working on printing on everything from cotton to silk.