Thursday March 1, 2018 13:41

2017 was a big and busy year for Textiles Alive. It was 12 months spent on a business definition, expansion, service refinement, product development and shopping for some incredible new machinery. And now 2018 marks a step change for the business. The result? A new-look, new-feel, refocused, refined Textiles Alive poised for the biggest year of their 38-year heritage.

Textiles Alive is the ultimate execution partner for all fabric centric imaging needs. They are the largest and most capable textile imaging production house and fabric specialist in New Zealand. But what sets them apart is their unique ‘trade only’ mantra that protects your relationships with your clients and turns jobs from a transaction to a partnership.

They have retained the down-to-earth client-centric service they are renowned for, while extensively growing their capacity and expertise through a combined 90 years’ experience in their staff and the investment of over $1 million in new machinery.

A big reason for this vigour and driver of change is the new-look management team. John, the expert in production, delivery, and process decided last year that an outwardly facing partner would be the perfect addition to expand the focus and compliment his skill set. Enter, Jacques Swanepoel; a man with an extensive reputation in the industry for a huge work ethic, a brain that can quickly unpick a brief and is solely solutions focused. Their vastly different skill sets enable success by embracing specialisation and prompting challenge.

March marked the culmination of the last 12 months of change and transitioning and the launch of the refreshed Textiles Alive brand to market. More than just a new logo and a refreshed colour palette their new catalogue is bursting with new products delivered in a concise and easy to reference way. The new look website www.textilesalive.co.nz gives a solid view of their key service areas and products in their four key disciplines; printing, pressing, cutting and sewing.

Textiles Alive’s newly extended custom-built factory spans 17,000 m2 and houses more than 25 pieces of capital equipment including some of the largest dye-sublimation fabric printing machines in the South Pacific. Chosen for its award-winning quality, reliability and superior outputs the new state-of-the-art EFI VUTEK FabriVUi significantly contributes to the ability to print 984m2 an hour in house.

The new machinery reproduces exceptional images through the dye-sublimation print process, dramatic four colour printing, deep colour saturation and wide colour gamut. They have ultra-high resolution and can produce most available fabrics at 3200mm wide with no seam.

Textiles Alive also boasts the largest finishing team in the country running their state-of-the-art finishing equipment. They have a suite of finishing machines, including fully automated sewing machines through to more manual specialised equipment, to allow them to ensure the highest quality and flexible solutions when finishing. Across the finishing team and machinery they can collectively sew 238 lineal meters per hour in house.

While all this growth and improvement is certainly something to be proud of its their ‘real’ customer service and focus on local that the business is particularly proud of. Textiles Alive produce their own products in-house to minimise carbon footprint, ensure materials are recycled where possible and that the manufacturing process is sustainably focused. They pride themselves on their overnight proofing policy and have just a five-day lead time for many of their products. By keeping our manufacturing local they can deliver a turnaround time international suppliers just can’t compete with.

From a small start to a company that is driving its industry forward, setting the standard and reinventing best practice, Textiles Alive is showing no signs of slowing down. 2018 might just be their year.

everything fabric…  under a single roof
NZMADE – vertically integrated New Zealand manufacturer with the most comprehensive print & finishing capability.