Orta and Wouter Munnichs pair up for ‘biggest sustainable jeans’
Visitors to denim show Bluezone in late January were treated to “the biggest sustainable jeans” on arrival, as project collaborator Wouter Munnichs put it.
Constructed from Turkish denim mill Orta’s latest fabric, a rigid 2/1 Z twill called Steel Blue (code 4853A), the trousers were something of “an eye-catcher for sure”, denim specialist Mr Munnichs reflected to Inside Denim afterwards. Roughly 4.5 metres in length, their waist size is 133 inches.
The 10.6-ounce denim is a blend of 80% cotton and 20% post-consumer recycled cotton. Everything, including the fibres themselves, was produced locally in Turkey, Mr Munnichs added, whereas the jeans’ design was inspired by bottoms worn by miners during the Californian gold rush, which began in 1848.
Along similar lines, their extreme proportions riff off the size and scale of denims made for display in front of shops and at circa-1920s rodeo events in the Western United States.
At Bluezone, the Orta-made pair was shown next to a regular-sized, 30-inch jean with a 31-inch waist.
All buttons and rivets, manufactured from recycled mono-material by YKK in Japan, were made to be detachable.
Image courtesy of Wouter Munnichs.
