Good news if you live in India! You can now purchase some of my designs as fabric as they are now available on Symplico. Symplico is a new print on demand fabric based in Surat, India that operates like Spoonflower does in the US. Designers upload their fabric, and customer get the option to purchase fabric by the meter on different type of fabrics for all their sewing projects.
They contacted me last month to know if I would be interested selling my designs with them, and after doing a bit of research, I was in and the prospect of selling fabric in India was very exciting.
Their uploading process works a bit differently from all the other PoD I know which is why my designs are going to be taking a bit of time finding their way in the shop as they review everything before publishing it.
This means all my work goes through their quality check team who then decide if the design is a good fit for them and will print well. Being a fabric printing company that can print in bulk, I imagine it's their way of making sure nobody gets any nasty surprise with designs not repeating well or colors not working when they order big rolls of fabric.
I put them to the test
The instant my first batch of designs went live, I knew I would order this orange and green fishes in seigaiha waves print to turn into a cute summer top. I selected the polyester based "Satin linen" option out of the 14 different types of fabric they offer because it was light weight and marked as a good choice for women's clothing. I placed that order on the 21st of May and it god delivered on the 29th. The Symplico team told me that most fabric orders get printed in 3-4 days with the exception of viscose based fabrics which can take up to 8 days, so if you plan or purchasing something bear that in mind. It should have reached me on the 28th, but BluDart revised the delivery date after one of their own transport got "delayed/cancelled" as per the tracking manifest. At this point though it's a courier company issue and not with the manufacturer.
The quality of the print is superb and when you work with printing services like I do, it's something that is always the first thing I check. All PoD out there ask designers to upload RGB files instead of CMYK because nowadays printers are able to read and convert the embedded color profile in the files, but sometimes things still can go wrong. A good printing company will make sure their printing machines are well calibrated and run smoothly, but I have unfortunately encountered companies with poor quality over the years. So back to Symplico, their color matching is on point and my on screen design is translating perfectly to this fabric print. The printer also picked up all the small glitter accents on the fishes nicely and gave a nice rendering. The fabric itself is light and has a little texture which makes it visually interesting and less generic than your standard polyester. Being a thin, light weight fabric, it isn't fully opaque, but it's not super transparent either. You can partially see through in the the white areas of my design, but not in the printed areas.
I sent it to a tailor right away to have it stiched as a wrap around top. We decided to go without lining because I wanted a light weight casual top. But with that fabric type, you might need some lining depending what you plan on turning it into. If you were to turn it into a dress, lining it would add some body to it and prevent the slight risk of being a tiny bit see-through. they have of course other fabric types that are thicker, and before placing an order, do check them all to see which one will fit best for the kind of project you have in mind.
As for myself? I think I might later invest in a sewing machine and get into home decor projects. Sewing clothes is pretty much out of my wheelhouse but as former interior decorator, I'm very familiar with home decor items stitching. I might even figure out how to sew simple clothes down the line...who knows.
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