A Turkish textile manufacturer based in one of the country’s most water-stressed regions has become the first in Turkey to install and run Epson’s Monna Lisa 64000 digital printer, a move it says has cut water consumption while expanding production capacity for international fashion brands.
Ayyıldız Dokuma, based in Tekirdağ in the Ergene River Basin, said the shift to pigment-based digital printing addresses both regulatory pressure and customer demand. The basin has faced severe water shortages since 2015, when authorities imposed strict water-management rules on new industrial facilities in the area.
The company, founded in 2010 and producing natural-fiber fabrics such as cotton, linen and Tencel since 2019, exports roughly 80% of its output to 40 countries, including Germany, the United States and Britain. Its customer base includes Inditex, the owner of Zara and other major retail brands.
“We had to turn to pigment printing because of the water shortage in the region,” said Emre Loğoğlu, co-founder of Ayyıldız Dokuma. Earlier trials with Chinese-made machines failed to deliver consistent quality, he said, prompting the company to look elsewhere. “Epson stepped in at that point and offered not just a machine, but a vision.”
Ayyıldız first tested Epson’s inks in 2021 before fully adopting Monna Lisa printers, which use pigment ink rather than reactive dyes. Pigment printing eliminates the water-intensive washing step required after reactive dyeing, a process that strains supply in regions like Ergene. The printers also include a built-in recycling system that filters water used during ribbon-cleaning, with sensors that track contamination levels to keep wastewater within local limits.
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The company operates two models, the ML-32000 and the flagship ML-64000, which uses 64 PrecisionCore print heads. Epson said the head count allows for high-speed output without sacrificing print quality, a combination that had previously eluded the company with other suppliers. Staff at Ayyıldız nicknamed the ML-64000 “Da Vinci.”
Loğoğlu said the earlier printers had created persistent doubts about reliability. “We kept asking ourselves whether the same problems would recur, whether the print heads would last a week, a month or whatever,” he said. “But the more time passed, the more none of this happened.”
Production stabilized within six months of installing the first machine, the company said, with faster sampling turnaround and more consistent quality at large volumes. Within eight months, rising demand led Ayyıldız to purchase a second Monna Lisa unit.
The technology arrives as fast-fashion brands push suppliers for shorter lead times alongside tighter environmental compliance, a combination that has strained manufacturers reliant on older reactive-dye processes. Digital pigment printing offers a way to meet both demands simultaneously, according to industry observers, by removing water-heavy finishing steps while shortening the cycle between design and finished fabric.
Epson, the Japan-based printer maker, has positioned Monna Lisa as a flagship product in its industrial textile printing line, part of a broader push by the company toward what it calls sustainable manufacturing technology. Seiko Epson Corporation, the parent company, has said it aims to become carbon negative and eliminate use of finite underground resources such as oil and metal by 2050.
For Ayyıldız, the partnership has gone beyond a typical supplier relationship, Loğoğlu said, describing it as a strategic alliance that has strengthened the company’s position with international clients who increasingly weigh sustainability credentials alongside price and speed.
“These developments could open up new possibilities for diversification in the future,” Loğoğlu said, referring to potential future technology from Epson, “in the sense of extending our business alongside our core production technology.”
The Ergene Basin remains one of the more closely watched regions in Turkey’s industrial water policy, and Ayyıldız’s adoption of the technology is being cited by industry trade press as a potential model for other manufacturers operating under similar water restrictions, both in Turkey and in other water-constrained textile-producing regions globally.
