Whether for a mountain ski community or hotel retailer, the resort market offers creative opportunities for decorated-apparel
success. Like most decorated-apparel
niches, the resort market is plenty competitive—if you’ve considered breaking
into this market, you’ve certainly got
some research to do.
In terms of what is hot, the world of
decorated resort apparel always seems to
be cutting edge. It is important to stay
on top of trends such as water-based and
discharge screen printing, oversized and
over-seams printing, out of the ordinary
placements, foil and rhinestone bling,
and even multimedia combinations of
embroidery, appliqués, transfers, inkjet
and screen printing. But of all of these,
water-based and discharge printing have
been steadfast within even the sharpest
cutting-edge markets.
Discharge printing embellishments are
nothing new to the decorated-apparel
industry. In fact, this method of water-
78 • PRINTWEAR • FEBRUARY 2010
Resort-style prints Discharge Printing
based printing on dark fabrics has been
around for decades. While many screen
printers may have been familiar with this
printing technique for years, it has resurfaced with enormous popularity at the
retail level. Many major brands use discharge screen printing to achieve an ultra soft-handed print on garments, some
of which hang an $80-plus price tag on
their trendy Ts in retail stores.
Discharge defined
Discharge inks are a part of what we
would call today’s specialty screen printing. The word discharge refers to a chemical reaction that destroys the ability of
certain dyes to reflect color. The technique uses a chemical to remove color
from a 100 percent cotton reactive-dyed
garment—the discharge agent in the
ink effectively breaks down the dye of
the fabric, leaving it un-dyed or natural
in color. This natural color is called the
original greige goods (pronounced and
also referred to as “gray” goods—simply,
Intermediate
a textile that has not received any bleaching, dying or finishing treatment). That
color is replaced by the pigment color in
the discharge ink.
Only reactive-dyed fabrics will discharge, and even then, not all 100 percent reactive-dyed cotton garments
discharge. Over-dyed, garment-dyed
or other pigment-dye processes do not
discharge. Most darker-colored reactive-dyed fabrics seem to discharge quite well,
while lighter colors sometimes do not.
Blues, reds and purples are particularly
troublesome.
The process generally eliminates the
need for a white under-base print and
multiple flashing, which is typical of
more conventional techniques used
when printing with plastisol. Though
available in plastisol form, printers usually opt for the water-based version on
dark garments, as it results in that extremely soft hand we are constantly
chasing. No other process produces such
a soft, breathable, absorbent, bright col-
