Brother Targets Latino Textile Business
The Brother International Corp. is targeting California’s league of independent and small apparel manufacturers to move into the digital age with its new GT-541 ink-jet garment printer.
The company is aiming to attract imprinted-sportswear businesses that currently use screen printers for T-shirt manufacturing and other businesses. California’s Latino community is a big submarket, and Brother has been showing the printer at a number of Latino community events in association with Latino Heritage Month. The GT-541 uses ink-jet technology that prints on many garments in highresolution color directly from a computer. Company executives said the system results in a cleaner, faster and more productive way to imprint images on garments. The investment for printing can be as low as 50 cents for the ink and $1 to $2 for the T-shirt, which can be sold at market rate from $15 to $30.
The printer uses water-based inks and can be cured by a heat press, eliminating the need for conveyor dryers.
“Brother is the only manufacturer developing this technology that has fieldtested their printer for over one year at embroidery and screen-printing businesses. We placed 29 units and imprinted more than 100,000 shirts in a real-world setting to make sure we delivered the quality and durability we projected,” said Peter Holland, senior director.
“We want to close the gap in technology among Latino screen printers and introduce the latest technology to people who aspire to open their own business,” said Fernando Padilla, owner of Stitch City, a Brother International distributor in Southern California. “We are introducing this new technology as part of a test market to give the Latino textile industry—and the community at large—an introduction to the business possibilities of owning the GT-541, a technology that is more efficient and less expensive to operate than traditional screen printing and that is currently revolutionizing the costly screenprinting industry.”
For more information, call (800) 432-3532.—Robert McAllister
