Company contact for Fashion students; Pleating, laser cutting, digital printing, document printing and more!

Company contacts have been incredibly useful to have over the last few years and I have built a range of contacts from fabric suppliers to where I made my business cards and look book.

Laser Cutting

• A & J Laser Cutting. Really great quality and local company with great prices and sampling for free. Files simple to do with illustrator and very quick 1-2 day turnaround. 

Laser engraved Garment labels

• A&J Laser engraving. Labels were done for me for free as I had gotten a lot of laser cutting done and they turned out really great. You can't seem them very well here but they are engraved onto leather.

Leather

• GH leathers. I didn't use a lot of leather, but for the laser cutting and labels I did use some leather from them and they had sent samples and very quick and easy to order from!

Pleating

• Ciment pleating. Although all the fabrics I sent during pre-collection were Polyester based some fabrics did not work and I was told some couldn't have certain patterns on it, which was very disappointing, as I was told anything could work on Polyester. Also some pleats fell out and others didn't work as well as my fabric being too wide, which meant they had to cut the fabric. This isn't mentioned in the demos they do, in which they state that any size can be pleated. They did however cut the cost, but I wouldn't use them again unless I knew exactly what would work best on what fabric and if they specified the dimensions for the fabric for each pleating pattern. The ones that did work however, looked great!

Digital Printing

• Silk Bureau. It was tough at first to understand how to prep files but once it was done it was a great service and fast considering I got over 21 metres of fabric delivered! Since it was almost a 4 digit figure for the samples I was hoping for student discount, but this is something they don't offer. Overall the quality was very good and their swatch pack has detailed info on fabrics, pricing and file set up. Luckily the cost of this paid off as I won the Paul Smith Nicole Abbott Award in 2016.

Work in progress exhibition minories

• Bags of Love. A company I used mainly in my second year. Not only is it very fast, but it also has a large range of fabrics at a great price! The only thing I would say is the quality isn't as crisp as the Silk Bureau and that for the 3rd year or professional printing (not samples) I wouldn't recommend this unless it is sampling.

2nd year Oasis project

Business cards

• Moo.com have a great selection and the first time I printed mine, the quality didn't look right so they did a complete re-print at no extra cost! Incredible quality, great customer service and reasonable prices make them a great company to order from! Free sample packs available on their site!

Lookbook

• Instantprint.com. I got a look book printed after receiving a free sample pack and got 100 for a great price. Artwork was emailed to them and it wasn't until I approved what it would look like that they sent it to be printed. They look great in the simple paper and was very fast turnaround (less than 2 days).

Headers

• Morplan.com. My mentor mentioned Morplan as the place to get headers from. I searched high and low on the internet and just couldn't find any. They have packs of the cards at different sizes for a great price. The only downside to Morplan is that you have to have a minimum order of £15 if you purchase anything. I flipped my cards inside out as the front had a square running across it. This was I got a full white on the outside of my headers, although I covered this with a sticker anyways.

Custom header stickers

• Discountstickerprinting.co.uk offer custom stickers and vinyls in a range of finishes and I got custom stickers made by choosing the size of the sticker and then making the artwork in Photoshop. The biggest downside to this site is you need a minimum of £50 per order. The stickers are quite cheap starting for £3 for 100 small rectangle stickers, but add that to your cart and be prepared to be charge £50. The good side is that you can put lots of orders together and split the cost. The quality and turnaround are second to none and come on a roll.

Document printing

• DoxDirect is one of my favourite sites. Any documents that need to be printed can be done online and sent straight to you with a very fast turnaround. It is very quick and easy which great quality and low prices! You can choose from paper sizes and thicknesses and plus each order comes with a pack of Haribos!