ImagesMagUK_June_2021

INDUSTRY NEWS www.images-magazine.com 16 images JUNE 2021 Rowlinson helps give a voice to workers Rowlinson Knitwear’s Bangladeshi partner factory, New Horizon, has created a democratically elected workers participation committee to help improve its workers’ rights. Facilitated by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) as part of its social dialogue programme, the new Elected Workers Participation Committee includes eight elected factory workers, comprising five women and three men, explained the knitwear manufacturer. “Its role is to give workers a voice – something that is generally lacking for those working within the ready-made garments sector in Bangladesh. “It will help workers and employers to better understand their rights and responsibilities, improve communications between workers and management, increase the participation of women in workplace processes and improve morale.” “Ethics and sustainability are just as important to us as making a profit, so we consider the welfare and rights of everyone in our supply chain,” commented Ken Edgar, overseas director at Rowlinson. imagesmag.uk/Rowlinson-New- Horizon-Committee Stay in the picture with our Instagram feed and stories: @imagesmaguk These hand-printed T-shirts for Hackney Bumps stand out thanks to the careful attention given by Tim Petrohilos of Random Generator Printing to blending the colours. The artwork was created by the client, a team of people who have rebuilt an abandoned concrete skatepark in Clapton, London, taking it from a derelict bowl to a thriving skating community for all ages. Each of the 180 T-shirts created boasts a unique colour, explains Tim. “We use one screen and manually mix a bead of ink that contains all three colours in a row. The main issue is that due to the liquidity of ink, the colours really want to merge into one the more the bead is passed back and forth; this means it needs a tight control, and quite constant adjustment – where the inks flow together too much it usually produces a muddy colour, or the size of each colour in the fade changes as it moves, so it requires you to keep an eye on the print and to remove and add ink where necessary. The benefit is all of them are ever-so slightly different, highlighting the hand-pulled and individually made nature of the technique.” The response to the T-shirts was impressive, with them selling out in one day. Tim used No Sweat’s Long Sleeve T-Shirt (NS02) in black and white. “No Sweat is a company fighting exploitation in the garment industry by building solidarity with workers worldwide, sharing profits, and all T-shirts and garments are made from fully traceable organic cotton, using azo-free dye and working with Oporajeo, a carbon-neutral factory that offsets emissions with their own tree planting project.” They were printed on a six-colour, four-station Hopkins manual press, and cured using a Panther 700 Texitunnel. Screens were a 43t mesh and all ink was from Screen Colour Systems Eco-Plas range, mixed by eye, with each colour containing an added percentage of fluoro (10-20%). www.randomgenerator.co www.hackneybumps.co.uk DECORATED PRODUCT OF THE MONTH Each of the Hackney Bumps T-shirts printed by Random Generator is slightly differently Pigment.Inc brings T-Fold desktop shirt folder to market Pigment.Inc has launched a new, fully automatic, desktop shirt folder. The PTM Innovations T-Fold is designed to fold and present a shirt ready for bagging in four seconds, equating to 350 to 550 shirts per hour with one operator, depending on the fold cycle selected. The desktop folding machine can be used for shirts from S-2XL, including long-sleeve and collared shirts, as well as thicker garments such as hoodies. It also comes with a two-year warranty as standard. “The T-Fold is portable, yet still industrial, and being all electric, can be run from a standard wall plug with no air requirement,” explained Marco Koolbergen, industrial products manager at Pigment.Inc. imagesmag.uk/PTM-T-Fold The new T-Fold is designed to fold a shirt ready for bagging in four seconds