Featured Project: Creating a Bold Catwalk with Floor Graphics

At his Autumn/Winter 2023 runway show, part of this year’s London Fashion Week, fashion designer Richard Quinn dazzled guests with a display of the colorful vibrance and environmentally conscious application of digital textile printing in fashion.

Quinn’s Autumn/Winter 2023 collection didn’t fail in exemplifying dye-sublimation’s role in fashion and was brought to life with the runway’s extravagant secret garden-inspired decor. But digital inkjet printing played another, more subtle, but equally critical role in this show’s success, namely the floor graphics.

Providing the first layer of the runway’s decorative theme onto an otherwise plain surface was a black and white diamond floor made from Drytac Polar PET 170 polyester floor graphics media, printed using water-based resin inks.

The scuff and tear-resistant PVC-free polyester floor graphics, which contain 40% recycled material, were provided by adhesive-coated products manufacturer Drytac, were printed onto using an Epson SureColor SC-R5000 resin printer, and were installed by print solutions specialist Max Media Prints. The Epson resin printer uses water-based inks that not only offer a durable solution for the catwalk but render the substrate recyclable and free from any environmentally harmful substance.

This marks the second consecutive year that digital textile and signage printing have helped bring to life Quinn’s fashion collection and catwalk themes.

“It’s always a delight to see Richard Quinn’s designs brought to life through digital textile printing, and I’m pleased that this has also offered such a great chance for our signage printing technology to shine, states Phil McMullin, head of sales for ProGraphics at Epson UK.

McMullin continues, “The SureColor SC-R5000 takes the technology of our SureColor printer range and adds our resin ink set to deliver abrasion resistance without lamination as well as enhanced recyclability. In combination with the Drytac Polar PET 170 media, it provides a perfect result for this application. And Epson is again pleased to work with Richard Quinn, a great example of young British talent making waves globally.”