One for the Textile Designers out there.

This garment landed on my desk this morning, it's a T from Bershka and has quite an interesting technique on that I don't think I've seen before. No doubt it's been around a while but it's definitely a new idea at work. The T has rows of sequins stitched in a rectangular arrangement and my initial thought was that each sequin had been individually coloured which I quickly realised couldn't be done. 

How they've done it is sublimation printing directly onto white sequins which have already been sewn to the shirt. You can tell by the run off either side at the top where the design has missed the sequins a bit. I'm not sure how they've avoided getting dye on the shirt, I'm assuming that this couldn't be done with a white top as it would inevitably transfer some of the dye to the fabric. But I think it's a fairly safe technique with darker bases like the charcoal here. 

Has anyone else seen more of these? Are there any white ones? I'm aware of a similar technique which involves printing the garment first (with water based inks) and then sewing transparent sequins over the top. Just don't think it looks as good...