Cotton, corduroy, canvas, oh my! Half of getting a project right is picking a material that actually fits. The Material Matters Series, runs down what these materials actually are, and when and how to best use them.
Next up on our series is Mimic, which is exactly what it sounds like, a fabric built to walk and talk like silk without actually being silk, and honestly it does the impression well enough that we’re not mad about it.
The Build
Mimic is a polyester based synthetic engineered to copy silk’s drape and sheen, so you get that soft fall and subtle gloss without the price tag or the dry clean only tag that usually comes attached to the real thing. It’s printed with full color sublimation, so colors go on vibrant, gradients blend soft instead of banding, and fine detail actually stays fine instead of turning into a blob.
Right now it lives in the Slip Scarf, 22 by 22 inches for everyday wear, and the XL Slip Scarf, 35 by 35 inches for when someone wants more fabric to work with.
The Vibe
This is the fabric equivalent of someone walking into a room in a great outfit and everyone assuming they spent more than they did. It’s got weight and movement to it, a little shine that catches the light without screaming about it, and it feels like the kind of thing you’d actually want touching your neck, not just something that showed up in a swag bag.
Tie it around your neck, loop it through a tote handle, knot it on a wrist, and it holds its drape shape the whole time.
The Case For It
“It feels like silk, it photographs like silk, and nobody needs to know it isn’t.”
That’s the pitch, and it’s a true one. Scarves are having a real moment right now, on the street and on the runway, and clients are starting to notice that a branded scarf gets worn on someone’s own terms in a way a branded pen never will. Mimic’s real advantage is the full color sublimation, it means the design can actually be a design, an all over pattern or a photo moment, instead of a logo stamped dead center.
The Deets
Say the quiet part out loud with customers, this is not silk, it just plays one convincingly, and that’s actually a selling point since it means no special care instructions to scare anyone off. Because the print is full color sublimation, it wants to cover ground, a tiny centered logo on all that fabric is going to look a little lonely, so steer creative toward something that uses the whole canvas.
Mimic also shows up in other self care pieces like the eye mask, scrunchie, and pillowcase.
Where It Shows Up
Mimic, starting with the Slip Scarf (22” x 22”) and XL Slip Scarf (35” x 35”), plus the Eye Mask, Scrunchie, and Pillowcase for a full self care lineup built on the same fabric.
Next up in Material Matters, we’re going back to something a lot more familiar and figuring out why it never really left.