The digital fabric printing industry has grown considerably over recent years, and there are now a number of players on the market. I’ve been promising a series of reviews of some of the options out there (particularly UK/EU-based services), and I’m finally ready to start sharing the results! Once I’ve worked through my reviews, I’ll post a summary with an at-a-glance comparison of fabric options and pricing.
First up is Fashion Formula. This is a UK-based service offering a wide range of fabric and paper options for printing.
Fabric options & pricing
Fashion Formula offers an extensive range of over 50 different fabric options, which includes nine organic/recycled/eco options. They are also among the few services that offers a viscose - in this case a lightweight bamboo with a soft hand feel and floaty drape. You can order a swatch book for a nominal fee, which provides a small printed sample of each fabric/paper in the range.
Fashion Formula’s pricing runs higher than some other services for the standard fabric options, but they do offer quantity discounts if you order more than 4 metres (and this can include multiple different designs), and also offer 25% student discount. Their full price list is available on their website, but here are some indicative prices for reference:
Cotton poplin: £33.32 per metre (reducing to £29.17 for orders over 10 metres)
Top sateen cotton: £34.06 per metre (£27.78 for orders over 10 metres)
Bamboo: £32.67 per metre (£25.00 for orders over 10 metres)
Poly crepe de chine: £28.83 (£23.61 for orders over 10 metres)
They also currently have a number of end-of-line fabrics at a substantial discount. I selected their Poly Marocain, which is available at 40% off while stocks last. With bulk discounts (I ordered over 10 metres in total, comprising several different designs), this came out at just £12.22 per metre. While I normally avoid polyester, I’m on a perpetual hunt for a print-on-demand fabric which replicates the feel, texture and drape of a 1940s rayon, and the Marocain is the closest I’ve found so far. The rest of this review is primarily based on this fabric.
Order process and delivery
Similarly to other services, you can browse other users’ designs, or upload your own. The order process at Fashion Formula is quite straightforward - you upload or select your design, specify the DPI (the scale of the print), then choose the product (fabric or wallpaper) to print on.
Unlike some other services, buyers can specify the print DPI to suit their own project. This means sellers do not need to list multiple size variations of the same design (with the associated swatching costs).
My order arrived within about two weeks, which I considered quite speedy at a time when lockdown and postal issues were still presenting problems. Their normal turnaround time is about 2-4 days for orders up to 500m.
Colour and print quality
The printed colours on the poly Marocain are rich and saturated, and reasonably true to how they appeared on my screen. Blacks come out nice and deep, even in large areas, on both the Marocain and a cotton swatch. The lines are sharp with very little dye bleed, which allows for a lot of detail in your designs (I had to give my black outlines a ‘distressed’ effect to make them look more vintage as they look too clean otherwise).
Due to Fashion Formula’s printing process, the printed design sits on the surface of the fabric and doesn’t penetrate the actual fibres. Particularly with dark colours, this means the white base fabric can show through where the needle has pierced, so there is a tiny amount of white visible at seams and topstitched details (and if you find yourself having to redo a seam, you’ll be left with a ‘track mark’ of the previous stitches). I’ve also noticed that the print is wearing thin in the seat of the skirt after a few months of regular wear. I spoke to Fashion Formula about this, and they told me that this issue is due to the weave/texture of this fabric, and one of the reasons they took the decision to discontinue this particular fabric. The issue doesn’t present in their regular fabrics.
They also clarified that their poly fabrics are printed using a sublimation method, in which the dyes penetrate the fabric, giving a superior wash and rub fastness, while their cottons are pigment printed (the dye sits on the surface).
Detail of shirring which shows pinpricks of the white base fabric where the needle has pierced.
The print has rubbed off the seat of the skirt slightly after several weeks of wear. This isn’t particularly noticeable when worn, however.
Selling your designs
As with other print-on-demand services, there is a requirement to purchase a swatch of your design before you can list it for sale in the Fashion Formula marketplace. Swatches are 20x20cm and are priced proportionally to the per-metre cost, so you can get an individual swatch for as little as £1.67. Quantity discount pricing also applies to swatches if you purchase more than 12.
Once you have purchased your swatch, you can opt into selling your design (it isn’t automatic; all designs are private by default, you have to tick the box to make them public and sell).
Note: there is currently no website functionality to upload a revision to an existing design (e.g. if you need to make adjustments to the colours after printing a swatch). However, if you email the support team they can swap in a new image file to replace the original, normally within an hour.
Designers receive 10% commission on sales of their designs, rising with sales volumes up to 20% (for monthly sales over £2,500).
Verdict
Overall I’m happy with the service. While other services beat Fashion Formula on price, they do have a good selection of fabrics including some which are hard to find for digital printing elsewhere. I would be intrigued to try the bamboo and the new viscose fabric they have coming out soon.
Shop my designs
I have a small selection of 1940s style designs - including the one featured here, which is based on a vintage silk scarf - available in my Fashion Formula Shop.
