John Herrera x Epson: Where sustainable & wearable fashion meets tech

For someone who’s more used to working with his hands than with a computer, this new collaboration between Epson and fashion designer John Herrera serves as an experiment and advocacy of sorts—not just for a new way to create garments but a way to raise awareness about a more sustainable yet creative way to make clothes.

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This partnership between the Japanese tech company and Herrera marks his first attempt at digital fabric printing. For Epson, it’s their second foray into the fashion business after collaborating with Avel Bacudio two years ago.

Herrera takes a bold, graphic approach with his turn. He takes inspiration from our majestic national bird, the Agila—specifically he used illustrations of Mulawin and PAGASA.

The freedom Epson’s textile-dye sublimation transfer printers, the SureColor SC-F9270 and SC-6270, gave Herrera a chance to create an outstanding 30-piece collection. He previewed the new collection recently at Shangri-La Plaza Mall’s Grand Atrium. But it doesn’t end there, the pieces will be shown off at the upcoming London Fashion Week.

Herrera, who won top prize at the 2015 London Emerging Designers Awards, spoke at yesterday’s event and talked about how much more he’s been able to do with Epson’s technology. He makes the point of how he doesn’t see why we can’t join technology and fashion.

“This partnership with Epson is very exciting,” he says. “There are so many things you can do with printing compared to just buying fabric. Before, all collections by designers were done painstakingly by hand. Many of the outfits such as 3D items that are worn by the models can only be attached by hand, so what was presented on the runway cannot be worn again and again. With digital printing, the actual clothes in the collection can really be worn in real life.”

And it’s given him freedom to experiment as well. He boasts about the technology’s ability to enable bias cuts or circle cut prints that can be customized more because the images don’t get cut off when you make a skirt or dress.

Aside from being able to experiment with cuts, he emphasizes the importance of sustainable fashion as he personally adopts a “no waste, no plastic” approach to fashion design. Herrera puts a lot of importance on lessening wastage in his work.

“With digital textile printing, we only use the exact volume of fabric. Instead of wasting five yards of fabric to do a lay out for a dress, we use only one and a half yards of digitally printed fabric to create one. Digital textile printing significantly lessens fabric wastage. Faster, more intelligent, almost zero wastage—that’s what Epson brings to the table,” he adds.

This more eco-conscious approach is evident down to the kinds of things he wants to design and print. He plans to use more of our endemic species as inspiration for prints, including the butanding or the musang, among many others.

He also wants to use Epson’s technology to make his clothes more wearable. Digital textile printing is said to be a cheaper way to produce clothes than the traditional methods. This’ll allow Herrera to do more with less, while keeping the design more personalized and accessible to more people.

The accomplished designer hopes this collaboration might also inspire other local designers to create their own prints—or use his as he plans to sell the prints he comes up with. He believes it’s about time for talented Filipino designers to raise their games as he has clearly done with this new project with Epson.