Kyocera made water-saving textile printing visible as fashion

Water use in dyeing is hard for buyers to see, so Kyocera's FOREARTH printer risked sounding like another sustainability claim. True Blue Textile made the claim material: fabric printed with patterns from Japan's Niyodo River under the concept Wear to Save Water.

TBWA\HAKUHODO describes the textile as open-source and made possible by Kyocera's printer technology, with extremely reduced water consumption compared with conventional textile printing. Hakuhodo's case page says the project launched on World Water Day and created garments with ANREALAGE and Vantan Design Institute designers.

The project turned a B2B machine advantage into consumer-facing fashion. Campaign Brief Asia reports that True Blue Textile won two bronze awards at Spikes Asia 2025, in Design and Industry Craft.

Let the saved resource become the design

It made water savings visible by printing water itself as the pattern.

Fashion designers translated a machine feature into cultural proof.

The open-source textile gave the technology a format others could imagine using.

When a technology benefit is invisible, build a proof object that turns the metric into something people can see and use.

True Blue Textile won Spikes Asia, ADFEST, MAD STARS, and NY ADC recognition. More importantly, it showed a way for industrial hardware brands to market sustainability through demonstrable artifacts, not abstract claims.