In my last blog, I discussed with you what a woven tie goes through in its process to becoming a fully grown adult. (for want of a better description!!)

I ended the blog going into the various steps that printed ties embark upon to become fully grown adults.

So I explained that its really important for the printer of the fabric and please understand that it is not necessarily the case that the printer is also the tie manufacturer or tie maker, in fact, far from it.

Also, I might add that printers by nature don’t necessarily make good tie manufacturers or tie makers as very often, the make up of the individual is not that of a manufacturing person but rather of a print or more creative individual.

So whilst I am not saying that tie manufacturers are not creative, they are more process driven as there are always steps to take in the construction of any garment which must be followed again and again to ensure a well made garment or custom ties for that matter.

Tie manufacturers or tie makers are able to pretty much make any tie or scarf so whether they are making corporate ties, company ties, custom ties, club ties, matric ties, promotional ties, branded ties or even corporate scarves or custom scarves, it really doesn’t matter what they are making because in order for custom ties or custom scarves to be  manufactured, there are steps to take to ensure a good quality end result.

One would also understand then that while we are on this point, tie manufacturers generally would not also be printers of printed ties or weavers of yarn and please note that I am talking mainly about south Africa in this case as it is not the same world wide- in many other large tie manufacturing countries, the whole process is under one roof, especially in the far east(China for example where massive factories, supplying the world’s custom ties have everything under one roof including the woven tie process and printed tie process.’

Also, around the world, one would find that a greater amount or number of ties made by tie makers are woven ties and not printed ties, especially from a fashion perspective.

So it is important to not that in the manufacturing process or production process of printed ties, the design is printed onto what we call transfer papers just like the old bubble gum wrappers we used to  get where if one licked the design on the paper and out it directly on a part of ones body, it would transfer the picture or image from the paper and so this process is similar except that a process of heat transfer is used, the technical description being sublimation whereby the design is transferred from the paper onto the fabric.

This process creates a huge amount of clarity and exactness of print aswell as boldness of colour and is the preferred method for printed ties.