Published on : Wednesday, July 2, 2014
A soft-floating drape, elaborate designs, at home in traditional as well as modern interiors: the new “Furore” fabric from Fischbacher attracts the right kind of attention in every kind of environment. A look behind the scenes at the production process reveals just how much effort is required to create this beautiful drapery.
Furore’s basic structure is tulle, a meshed fabric which originally took its name from the French city of Tulle. The pattern – stylised and ornamental flowers designed by the Fischbacher in-house design studio – is applied to the tulle as a heavy, opaque flock print. To ensure that the flocking stays on the tulle, Fischbacher, together with a French manufacturer, decided to employ an elaborate technique: the two-sided flock print.
The two-sided flock print requires the short fibres – the flock – to be arranged evenly on a metal table. The tulle is then stretched over the fibres and the metal table-top is connected to a high voltage generator.
The glue for attaching the flock fibres is applied to the tulle in the shape of the design. In a screen-printing process using a rubber squeegee, the glue is distributed evenly through the fine mesh of the tulle. For those areas where no glue is required, a special varnish layer renders the sieve’s mesh openings impermeable.
Usually, a screen printer is operated automatically. To create Furore, however, everything is done by hand. The table is marked to facilitate the correct placement of the stencils. The glue applied to the tulle attaches the flock fibres on the underside.
Then the flocking is applied to the other side of the fabric. To do this, a container filled with the flocking fibres is positioned above the tulle. The underside of the container is a metal sieve attached to a generator pole and the metal table-top is connected to the other pole. This creates a current which causes the fibres to fall through the sieve onto the tulle below and arranges them vertically on the fabric.
After the flock-print process is completed, the tulle is laid on a rack and rolled into a drying kiln. The fabric is very stiff after the process and must be treated by an Italian firm which specialises in the area to gift the fabric its soft structure. The fabric is finally ready to become “Furore”!
Tags: drapery, Fischbacher, flock, Furore, ornamental flower, print
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