Tastemaker

American Made

GOOD LIVING

The Bright Stuff

Building on its beloved children’s and women’s lines, Winter Water Factory is expanding into custom upholstery fabrics and home-décor items. Lynen talks about some of their popular designs.

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Summer Romper “Each season we add five to six new prints. Some motifs keep coming back by popular demand.” $42.

FROM IDEA TO REALITY

Winter Water Factory’s studio houses a custombuilt 90-foot table, which can print 30 yards of fabric at a time. Here’s how the magic happens.

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THE SCREEN GRAB

Lynen prints a transparency of a design, places it on a glass table with lights underneath, and puts the screen on top, covered in a light-sensitive emulsion. When the emulsion is washed off later, the design is imprinted onto the screen.

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THE TRANSFER

Lynen and Warnock roll out a panel of fabric on the adhesive table and place the screen with the design at one end. After mixing a large batch of ink, they pour it on one side of the screen, then spread it to the other side using a large squeegee.

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THE PLACEMENT

The table has a metal rail and stops to align the screen and ensure that the pattern will repeat seamlessly. Lynen and Warnock skip every other panel so the screen doesn’t touch wet ink. When the first round is dry, they fill in the gaps.

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THE RESULT

Once the entire piece of fabric is dry, they send it to a local cutand-sew factory to create samples. The finished products are available in stores and at winterwater factory.com.

Pouches “Our bags are hand-printed in Brooklyn on Belgian linen. They get softer with use over time.” $22 each.

Women’s Shirt “We usually stick with designs that are grown-up, but we do add in some more playful ones—you never know.” $48.