“Introducing the Kornit Storm HD6 to Hairy Baby has been probably one of the best financial decisions I’ve made in this business,” says Daragh Murphy, Founder of Hairy Baby Clothing Company.
Based in Cork, Hairy Baby was founded when Murphy, a former DJ, saw a market opportunity in imprinting shirts with what he called “Irishisms,” fun slogans playing into his countrymen’s common jovial character. He started with screen printing and vinyl transfer printing, two longtime standards of the decorated apparel industry, but which Murphy describe as having “a very slow process, requiring a lot of hand-eye coordination.”
“We’re a very reactive brand, so if something would happen, say, in pop culture, in the media, we’d be able to spin up a t-shirt really quickly,” he says. “You can only do that if you’re operating a print-on-demand system, so direct-to-garment was perfect for that.”
Furthermore, screens and transfers were limited in the types of impressions they could deliver; a 15-color job would prove too complex and costly, requiring Murphy to either temper the customer’s expectations or lose the order entirely. He found Kornit’s single-operator, single-step pushbutton capabilities offered a more consistent, versatile mechanism for accepting graphically complex orders in any quantity—and thus became the first business in Ireland to adopt Kornit Digital technology for sustainable digital direct-to-garment production on demand.
“Speed of print, the reliability factor, and the cost per print were the three main factors for me,” Murphy says. “Once we first saw our design roll off the Kornit, we said that’s it, we’re sorted here. This is brilliant. At present we have a lot of demand for crazy graphics, and the only way we can reproduce these is by using Kornit technology. With Kornit Storm HD6 it’s a beautiful smooth print, perfect color every time, everyone’s a winner.”
While sourcing internationally has long made good business sense, Murphy has found in recent years—especially in the post-Brexit era—that supply chain logistics have grown more complicated, and offering onshore fulfillment services to the Irish market specifically created a profitable market opportunity for Hairy Baby.
“The print-on-demand market in Ireland was pretty much nonexistent until we arrived on the scene,” he says. “There’s a lot of new brand startups in Ireland and up until now they’ve been getting a lot of their t-shirts printed abroad. By having a print-on-demand system here using the Storm HD6, we’ve nicely captured that market.”
Digital production system offered Hairy Baby the opportunity to improve its end-to-end operations, beyond the benefits of reliably high-quality fulfillment. Digitizing meant streamlining routines, ensuring visibility, and establishing a more robust sales network.
“We’re in the final stages of onboarding the KornitX workflow system, a unique system that allows us to integrate directly with some of our third-party client websites, so once an order’s placed in their sites it feeds directly into our workflow,” says Murphy. “Orders come in from our third party, they’re printed on the Kornit, and they’re shipped out directly to our clients.”
Furthermore, Murphy found Kornit’s sustainable inks, consumables, and production capabilities aligned well with his own sustainability goals, a key consideration in Hairy Baby’s technology investments.
“All of our t-shirts are organic cotton and sustainably produced, and all of our packaging is either craft paper or biodegradable mailers,” says Murphy. “Kornit and the NeoPigment ink system that we use helps us deliver that fully sustainable package.”
Since implementing Kornit Storm HD6, Murphy has built what he considers “a good relationship” with Kornit, find them quick to react to support needs.
“They have exceptional support systems, so anytime you would log a ticket it’s answered almost immediately, and they’re always very quick to introduce a fix,” he says. “They have some great training systems that you can attend; I went on a five-day training course and found it exceptional because there aren’t too many problems I’ve had with the Kornit that I couldn’t actually handle myself now.”
Owing to Kornit’s single-step efficiency and versatility in imprinting a wide variety of materials and delivering ready-to-wear retail quality within minutes, Murphy foresees Hairy Baby ultimately replacing its screen and transfer operations entirely with the installation of a second Kornit production system, as “demand is so high at the moment that our machine is working almost around the clock these days.”
“I’m immensely proud of Hairy Baby and what we’ve achieved, especially since the introduction of Kornit systems,” he says. “It’s allowed us to expand the business rapidly. Our growth in the last year has been fantastic, and that’s a direct result of having a really high-end direct-to-garment system in place.”
“Entrepreneurs like Daragh at Hairy Baby recognize the value of capitalizing on new market opportunities, creating new sales channels, and providing efficient, responsive, high-quality products wherever the demand exists,” says Chris Govier, President of Kornit Digital EMEA. “By digitizing customer engagement, on-demand production, and shipping logistics, Kornit’s technology suite empowers these business visionaries to meet that challenge and scale their operations with a consistency and reliability to overcome the uncertainties of a dynamic market. We’re proud to support Hairy Baby, and showcase them as a model of sustainable, versatile onshore fulfilment.”
