Emprime fabric — from the French imprimer, to print — is a rotary-print technique applied to a woven or textured base cloth rather than a plain smooth fabric. The result is a fabric that carries a printed surface pattern while retaining the drape, hand feel, and structural quality of the underlying woven base. It is why a single base fabric can support dozens of print designs without any variation in how the finished garment hangs or behaves.

How rotary printing works

In rotary printing, the fabric passes continuously under a set of engraved cylinders, each carrying a single colour of the print. As the cylinder rotates, it deposits its colour at high speed across the full width of the fabric in a repeating pattern. The technique is fast, consistent, and well suited to large print runs where colour registration and repeat accuracy need to be reliable across many meters of cloth.

What makes emprime distinct from printing on a plain woven or knit base is the base fabric itself. When rotary printing is applied to a textured jacquard ground, the printed colour sits differently across the raised and recessed areas of the weave, giving the finished fabric a visual depth that a flat-surface print on plain cloth does not have. The woven structure is visible beneath and through the print, and the fabric drapes the way a woven fabric drapes — with weight, fluidity, and consistency — not the way a printed jersey or cotton does.

Emprime vs woven jacquard: the key difference

A woven jacquard has its pattern built into the structure of the cloth at the loom. The motif is permanent, physically present in the weave, and cannot be separated from the fabric. An emprime fabric has its pattern applied on top of the woven base after weaving. The base is fixed; the surface pattern can change. This is the commercial advantage of the emprime method — one consistent base fabric can be printed with many different designs across a season, allowing a supplier to offer a wide print catalog without maintaining separate stocks of many different base cloths.

For a buyer, the practical difference is this: in a woven jacquard, the pattern has texture you can feel. In an emprime, the surface is printed and the texture you feel comes from the base weave, not the printed motif. Both are legitimate construction methods; the choice depends on whether you want the pattern to be woven into the cloth or printed on top of it.

The emprime fabrics in the HIBA collection

Three products in the HIBA collection use the emprime method, each on a different base fabric at a different GSM.

At 145cm wide and a midweight GSM, the silky rayon has enough body to drape as a flowing dress or kaftan without feeling thin, while staying fluid enough for open abayas and blouse silhouettes.

Because it is lighter and more transparent than the silky rayon, the chiffon rayon requires a lining in most garment applications — but paired with the right underlayer, the combination of the lightweight emprime print and the lining creates a finished piece that reads as more layered and intentional than a single opaque fabric would.

This one takes the emprime technique further by applying it to a textured jacquard base rather than a plain rayon ground, built from a 63% rayon-37% viscose blend. The print sits on a woven surface rather than a smooth one, giving the finished fabric more visual complexity than a standard printed rayon. Because the base is consistent across all prints, a collection built from several different prints in this range will share the same drape and hand feel across every garment.

How to care for emprime fabric

Because the print is applied to the surface of the base cloth, heat and harsh washing can affect colour integrity more than in a woven jacquard where the colour is structural. For all emprime fabrics in this range, test a swatch with your washing method, pressing temperature, and steaming technique before cutting the final garment. Cold or cool water hand washing with gentle handling is the safest approach. Press from the reverse side on low heat, and avoid strong wringing or tumble drying.

Order swatches of all three emprime fabrics to compare the drape, print vibrancy, and hand feel at different weights before committing to yardage. Wholesale and production quotes are available across the full range.