Room for nuance
‘Out-of-the-blue’ denim products make up a small part of the market, but they play an important role in providing variety in the all-indigo world of blue jeans. Whatever the colour of day, however, they are expected to wash and fade in the same way as traditional jeans. While piece or garment dyeing offer flexibility, their so-called ‘flat look’ is not always welcome. This is where new, and old, techniques are being harnessed to achieve the elusive yet ideal balance of novelty and authenticity.
In the denim rush that took off just out of the pandemic, driven by what is being called revenge buying, traditional indigo blue jeans were by far the best sellers. Consumers wanted ‘the real thing’, some would say, and it signalled that life was coming back to normal. But the ‘same old, same old’ can only go so far. The ever-spinning trend wheel has moved over a notch or two, bringing colour, what the industry jargon calls ‘non-denim’ jeans, back under the spotlight.
“Colour is coming back stronger than ever, absolutely,” Jose Royo, vice-president of Spanish mill Tejidos Royo, tells Inside Denim. “After the post-covid focus on denim jeans, people are now tired of looking alike and demand for colour is up. The colour story is also a sign that we are happy with life.” The Valencia-based mill has seen a huge increase in demand for garment-dyed products, which, he says, gives brands a lot of flexibility. “Instead of having a stock of dyed garments, they can stock undyed garments that can be dyed any day depending on the trend or weather. Today, the name of the game is flexibility, and garment dyeing is the best option.” The mill has just released a new version of its Dry Indigo in black, and is currently working on transposing its waterless foam dyeing process to a full range of hues.
There is always demand for colour and for different indigo casts, says Baris Ozden, product manager for Turkey-based Isko. “Sulphur dyes are washable and come in a palette of shades that are not bright, which gives fabrics more authenticity. They can reproduce the look and feel of indigo,” he says, adding that black sulphur is by far the most popular. But sulphur dyes do not cover the entire colour spectrum.
Neutral nuances
“Non-denim styles come and go,” says Nazim Kayhan, CEO and co-owner of Strom, a mill based in Istanbul. “It is like the swing of the pendulum. The market gets tired of indigo and shifts to colour, before swinging back to indigo. These phases usually last 1.5 to 2 years, and we are now in a colour phase,” he tells Inside Denim. He adds that the nuances that are in demand are not bright, but rather “colours that are easy to wear and to combine with other tones. We are seeing a lot of muted shades that tend towards neutrals in khakis, greys and blues.”
Fatih Ozkan, head of sales for Efna Tekstil, confirms the trend towards neutral tones. This Turkey-based company specialises in non-denim woven fabrics for casualwear. “This year, colours in demand are cinnamon browns and light blues,” he says. At Sharabati, the trendy tones of the day are “very soft, sandy, earthy; they are calm, not bright,” says Dilek Erik. The Turkey-based mill’s gabardine sales have picked up and are outpacing sales in denim. She attributes this surge to increased demand for comfort. “Gabardine is very comfortable to wear and we apply a carbon finish that gives fabrics a soft and fuzzy hand.”
With its new range of denims made from cotton that grows in colour, Bossa Denim is also tapping the trend for muted neutrals. The variety of cotton grown comes in shades of brown, in a lighter or darker tone. These naturally coloured fibres are used to make the warp yarns of a fabric and are woven with a traditional white weft. “Colour is coming back strong,” confirms marketing manager Ozge Ozsoy, adding that the cotton is grown in the region of Adana, where the mill is based, and the fabrics are among the most sustainable as they require no dyeing nor chemicals.
Authentic fading
The world of casualwear follows the same rulebook as that of denim, and the challenge, in woven or knitted goods, is to achieve the fading that signals wear, ideally revealing a white core, which the industry equates with authenticity.
Advanced Used Look, a new concept launched by DyStar and Kaiser Tekstil, is designed to deliver the coveted fading in colour. It is based on a family of selective reactive dyes, including the new Lava Dye OZN, and can be applied on fabrics or on garments, providing mills and brands added flexibility, says Serdar Demircioglu, Kaiser Tekstil’s sales and marketing manager. After dyeing, a special chemistry developed by DyStar is applied, in waterless conditions, and creates a worn-in look, which can be controlled and is said to offer high reproducibility. “Up till now, the dyes used would generally does not have high colour fastness,” he continues. The new process, which is patent pending, achieves a colour fastness rate of 5 for washing, crocking, etc. Advanced Used Look does not require hazardous chemicals such as potassium permanganate. It also contributes to saving time and energy, the company states. “Indigo has by far the largest market share, but brands also need to offer garments in other shades, and in a wide array of fadings. Advanced Used Look offers a sustainable solution for all colours as it does not require water nor harmful bleaching agents,” says Mr Demircioglu. Advanced Used Look, and the Lava Dye OZN dyestuff group, thus fill a gap in the market, offering the desired fading along with the desired colour fastness.
Colourizd, a company based in North Carolina and Hong Kong, has devised a dyeing process that gives yarns a washed down aspect from the start. Initially developed for knits, this ‘direct colour application method’ uses very little water and applies to cellulose-based fibres. Its key advantage is to eliminate the need for washing made-up garments. “Our system is not the traditional, one litre of water for two kilogrammes of yarn,” says Jennifer Thompson, company founder with her husband Allen Thompson and Antony Lau. It is a “radically sustainable dyeing process” as it generates no wastewater. “Most of the water gets steamed off and what is released is cleaner than the one we took,” she says.
Colourizd’s process is said to add strength to the yarn and can be applied on greige yarns. A pre-treatment process is applied, but the yarn does not need to have been bleached beforehand. The company is working on using its system to dye indigo, but that’s another story.
For brands looking for more sustainable colour solutions, Italian chemicals company Montega has developed a range of dyes derived from plants or agro-industry waste. The company grows some of the plants it uses to make its Montedel natural dyestuff range. The dyeing process is based on 100% natural raw materials, export manager Lucia D’angelo Maddaleno tells Inside Denim. For non-denim products, Montega’s My Eco Finish Dye is another low impact process that gives fabrics or garments a worn-in look.
Coloured warp yarns
It remains that for diehard denim buffs, the fabric that defines a pair of jeans is made from warp yarns dyed indigo and weft yarns left undyed. But it is entirely possible to weave a fabric with the same contrasting face and back in colour. It just requires dyeing warp yarns in a tone other than indigo.
Taking the original ‘recipe’ for denim but translating it into colour is what Artistic Garment Industries (AGI) has done in a range it calls Kaleido. “Conventional non-denim fabrics usually have a flat look, but what was lacking in the market was more depth and more authenticity,” says Faizan Ahmed, deputy manager, corporate communications and marketing for the Pakistan based mill. Kaleido fabrics feature a warp dyed in colour, a weft left white, like a genuine denim fabric, and they wash and fade like the real thing.
AGI’s initial range of hues is limited. “We started with four shades and will expand if demand follows,” he says, but admits that the concept is slow to come to market. “It may take years, which is often the case in our industry,” he notes, citing Tencel as an example. “I anticipate that Kaleido will gain popularity. There is room for colour and what we provide is not the conventional chino look, it is very different. With the fast pace of fashion, there is a need for variety.”
Fabrics made with coloured warp yarns are not new, but the process has limitations, points out José Royo, in addition to requiring high minimums (MOQs). “We used to offer coloured warp dyed fabrics, but our focus now is on a no-stock thinking. To make these profitable, we would need to make and sell each colour in 10,000 metre lots. With garment-dyeing, it is easy to dye 50 items in a given shade, and a brand can decide late in the season what tone it wants; it is much more flexible,” he says.
“A coloured warp is a good story, but it is not easy to achieve the ‘right’ shade for a given season,” remarks Italian denim designer Paolo Gnutti. He also finds that the high MOQs make them difficult to market. In his latest luxury range for Isko, he enhanced the traditional white weft yarns of a denim fabric with a silver foil. This adds a subtle sparkle to the face of the fabric, and can be used to create striking styles by playing with the two contrasting sides.
It is technically much easier to change the colour of a weft, than a warp. In traditional indigo dyeing, thousands of warp yarns go through a range of baths alternating with exposure to air. If something goes wrong, and the shade is off, 800 metres of yarns can end up in the bin. Any change of dyestuff is presumably a long and potentially wasteful process.
DyStar and German machine maker RotaSpray have addressed this issue with the Spray Application Technology for denim. Combined with selected dyes and auxiliaries made by DyStar, it is said to simplify the process of changing colours in the continuous dyeing of warp yarns, and makes it possible to produce smaller lots. “Any mixture of indigo, sulphur or vat dyes can now be applied in one step, without fearing the well-known differences in affinity and exhaustion behaviours of dye mixtures. Contamination problems in bottoming and topping processes are also eliminated,” says Jakob Krzysko global technical manager for denim at DyStar.
The ‘contactless’ application method developed by RotaSpray is a true breakthrough, the company states. “Eliminating classical padders and large dipping baths is a revolution in our industry. The contactless application avoids contamination between the dye liquor and the chemical liquor. This removes the risk of undesired hydrolysis of the reactive dyes and the intermediate drying phase,” he says. Furthermore, he adds, “it allows a significant reduction of salt in dark colours, and up to complete elimination in bright tones. This process significantly reduces the environmental footprint of reactive dyeing and opens the door for denim producers to a wider range of shades in short lots.” With the right technology, he concludes, it is possible to dye warp yarns in a variety of tones with minimal impact on the environment.
Colour may be fashion’s favourite recipe for variety, and a major driver of sales, but it has always taken the back seat in the world of denim, forever bound to indigo. This does not stop the wheel of trends, nor of innovation. The various solutions to expanding the palette all share a single and very clear goal: to infuse coloured, or non-denim, jeans with the ring of authenticity and novelty. And thus, make room for nuance.
The novel ‘direct colour application method’ developed by Colourizd uses very little water and delivers the authentic fade and white core of denim lore from the start.
Photo: Colourizd
