What is it about Pigment Dye that makes it so popular?

Pigment Dye is popular for its vintage, washed and worn look. It looks like your favorite old sweatshirt from years ago. This washed look makes screen prints really pop, and gives a really unique fabric look, and color palette that can’t be mimicked.

What makes Independent’s Pigment Dye different?

Pigment Dye is different in many ways:

The first major difference is a Pigment Dye garment It is made in different steps than a normal sweatshirt. Traditionally a sweatshirt fabric is knit, rolls of fabric are dyed to color, then cut, and sewn into a sweatshirt. For Pigment Dye however, fabric is knit, cut & sewn into a (“PFD” Prepared For Dye) sweatshirt, then Pigment Dyed to color as full garments.

The second major difference is Pigment Dye is different than a regular dye. Normal reactive dye bonds chemically to the yarns and won’t change. Pigment Dye however coats the yarns in the fleece fabric, but isn’t chemically bonded. That’s why you see variation in how well the pigment dye covers the yarns. The large panels get good coverage, and the seams and other high spots on the garment get less coverage. These highs and lows make for some beautiful textures, and color variation making each and every garment unique and individual like the wearer themselves.
 

Can you describe the reactive dye process?

Pigment Dye garments are traditionally 100% Cotton. Our Pigment Dye Hoodie is 80% Cotton/20% Polyester. The face yarn is 100% Cotton for printability and the interior yarn is 60% Cotton/40% Polyester. We’ve added Polyester to the interior for softness and stretch. We also added an enzyme wash to give it a super soft feel.

Pigment Dye is not an exact science. We developed our Pigment formula after years of trial and error. Our unique formula has an ideal blend of color saturation and washed out look that we could come up with. It is a fine line, too washed out or not washed out enough. The PRM4500 colors are just right.
 

Is Pigment Dye a lasting trend?

Absolutely. Pigment Dye is making a comeback now, and having the PRM3500, PRM4500 in stock is making it more accessible, but we’ve been making Pigment Dye garments custom for 30+ years. Pigment Dye was popular before us, still is, and we think will always be popular for apparel.
 

What inspired the color palette?

Our Pigment Dye color palette is geared towards resort wear, summer colors.
 

What is the fit on the PRM3500 & PRM4500?

The PRM3500 & PRM4500 are a Unisex fit. Pigment dye sweatshirts traditionally have been a mens fit, but have been popular for women to wear as a baggy boyfriend fit. So we went for a unisex fit to be a standard fit for men and slightly oversized for women. We recommend women order a size down for a good fit.
 

Tell us about the PFD (Prepared for Dye) Garment.

The PFD PRM3500 & PRM4500 Garment is the garment before it is pigment dyed. The PFD is a quick way to make a custom color domestically. The sky is the limit, whether you want to pigment dye, tie dye, direct dye, acid wash, snow wash etc.

1. IN STOCK - We keep PRM3500 & PRM4500 PFD in stock in our Fullerton, California, & Jessup, Pennsylvania warehouses. These can be shipped from our warehouse in 24hrs or less to your dyehouse of choice to be dyed quickly to whatever color or technique you desire.
2. CUSTOM - We also have PFD Garments in stock in our Factory in China. There are many benefits to this process.
   1. We can handle the dyeing for you. If you order 600pc. you will get 600 top quality finished pieces.
   2. We can embellish your custom dyed garments with prints, embroidery, custom neck labels, hangtags, poly bags, custom boxes, you name it, we do it.
   3. Custom Dyes on our PRM3500 + PRM4500 PFD is the fastest type of custom order we can make... What’s great about PFD is it cuts down the lead time by more than half. The garments are already knit, cut/sewn, and in stock in large quantities that are ready to be dyed. Dyeing can take 2-4 weeks and about 2-4 weeks to ship from China to our CA or PA Warehouse.
   4. Minimum orders are 600pc. which is the lowest MOQ custom order we can make.