Amazon patents automated on-demand clothing factory

© Luis Louro | Dreamstime.com - Pollution

There’s something going on the apparel industry that is remarkably similar to the “print-on-demand” revolution under way in the book publishing business. Apparently, Amazon has been granted a patent for something that sounds like fashion’s version of “print-on-demand”. After spending the past few years building out its own apparel manufacturing lines, it is now planning to develop an automated system. “A textile printer would create the various fabrics needed. The fabrics would then be automatically fed over to a textile cutter, which would cut out pattern pieces from the sheets of fabric to be assembled into the finished garments.” Given the insane impact that Zara has had on clothing supply chains through adopting the fast-fashion model, imagine what this would do…