12 - Emerging market trends: the cultural designs printed with digital printing technology: an overview of Ajrak design

Abstract

Pakistani textiles from one of the world’s driest regions are vibrant and strikingly colored. Fabrics from Sindh focuses on a private collection of textiles from Sindh, Pakistan, which some experts believe was the arena in which Gujarat and Rajasthan’s textile traditions were born. Sindhi fabrics are one-of-a-kind because they articulate a dimension that blends the tensile strength of the terrain with a search for a mythological, untouchable beauty. The traditional textile market concerns things created for specific customer castes, most notably farmers and herders. It investigates postcolonial processes that have altered this traditional market, such as wholesale manufacturing industrialization and transforming agricultural patterns. It identifies the rise of new, globally-connected marketplaces and how local producers respond to them by inventing new products. This book chapter focuses on digital textile printing technology and its application to on-demand fabric printing services. The innovations in digital textile manufacturing technology, their applications, the specifications for digital textile printing, and the new technology’s economic implications.