Cone’s time to shine with heritage, Western and 100% recycled
15/05/2024
It has mastered a way of using its industrial cotton waste, which has traditionally has been used for insulation or stuffed toys, separating it in such a way that it is pure enough to make a natural colour. The spinning machines are modified and the weaving slowed to make a durable 100% recycled fabric.
Sarah Posluszny, product design manager at Cone, told Inside Denim: “With the Remastered capsules, we are always trying to push ourselves to incorporate as much sustainability as we can, whether it be the fibre, the dyestuff or the finishing technology, we try to push it forward. We also worked with the laundry to make sure these fabrics are durable, commercial and scalable.”
The next stage of R&D will be to add slub patterns to the 100% recycled fabrics.
Cone’s Luxe for Life collection uses cotton-tencel blends, which fits well with Western wear coming to the mass fashion market, added Ms Posluszny. Radio Star is a slubby cotton-tencel blend with some recycled cotton, which works well for 90s/Y2K looks.
“We have capsules for Western workwear, but we have been developing into that market for decades,” said Ms Posluszny. “Because it’s now a big trend, this is our time to shine with a lot of our fabrics. A lot of the developments with the broken twill, for instance, we developed with Wrangler, and now everyone wants them!”
Other collections include a green cast fabric. “Previously, green cast fabric was muddy, but we have now created one that can look like indigo but with hints of green,” explained Kelvin Sin, product development manager at Cone. “It has a lovely hand feel and characteristic.”
One of his favourites in the collection is a fabric that was originally produced in the 1990s. “Every season we try to bring one of our historic fabrics back to life. We can resurrect fabrics we ran in the 90s and early 2000s, and that’s what’s trending now.”
At Kingpins Amsterdam, Cone also showed its collaboration with COLOURizd, a technology that directly infuses pigments and a binder into the yarn, eliminating the need for traditional dye baths. This results in a 90% reduction in water and 73% reduction in carbon footprint compared with conventional dyeing, according to the companies. It will be used for Cone’s Community Collection Forest Conservation fabrics, supporting the Rainforest Alliance. The green colour falls into the military and workwear trends, while reflecting the forest conservation.
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