Lately I’ve had a lot of people asking me what it is that I do during my days. And my answer to that is, I direct a textile swatch studio in Philadelphia called Printfresh. Many of you are probably not familiar with this aspect of the fashion industry. The gist of it is that when apparel companies need artwork for their garments and want a fresh look from outside their artwork department they turn to swatch studios who come and show their work. It’s a great way for apparel companies to look at artwork, select pieces that suit their needs, and send it off to their production facilities right away (cutting down on lengthy artwork development stages).

All of the artwork that we as well as other swatch studios create is one of kind a kind and only sold once, this ensures that no two apparel companies will have the same artwork on their garments.

The sales end of the business is in the form of on-site appointments and the several trade shows that happen a few times per year. The two most important shows are Direction in New York and Premier Vision (Indigo) in Paris. At these shows all of the major studios, primarily from Europe and America, come together to display their work and apparel companies send their designers to shop for inspiration/artwork. This is the origin of a good proportion of the artwork that you see in stores these days.

At Printfresh we have a great team of talented artists and designers who create our original artwork. We create prints through drawing in Photoshop/Illustrator or by hand. We then print them directly onto fabric on our huge digital printer (see below right, it’s just in front of the window) or we silk screen them (see below left). We also create intricate embroidery designs (see above right).