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Photoshopping for the silhouette

Adrian Wilson

Whichever way you twist and bend the story, it’s still all about stretch in the denim industry in 2016.

24th May 2016

Adrian Wilson
 |  Barcelona

Clothing/​Footwear

Whichever way you twist and bend the story, it’s still all about stretch in the denim industry in 2016.

But renowned designer François Girbaud – who was a pioneer of stretch fabrics working with DuPont thirty years ago – not to mention introducing damaging processes such as the sandblasting and acid washing of denims back in the 1970s and 80s – has had enough of it.

François Girbaud, a pioneer of stretch fabrics. © Adrian Wilson

“Stretch doesn’t solve everything,” he said at PV Denim held in Barcelona last week. “We have reached an impasse in terms of the possibilities of making denim more like knitted sportswear. There has to be a further evolution of denim jeans and a return to advanced design and body shape – and you can’t do that with shapeless leggings and making denim increasingly like them. We’ve had enough of that camel-toe approach.”

Girbaud has recently teamed up with Lahore, Pakistan-based Naveena Denim Ltd. (NDL) and in Barcelona introduced the Note de l’Auteur (also NDL) collection. It centres on enhancing the body shape by eliminating stretch in the weft direction completely, but at the same time packing high stretch in the warp. This provides rigid compression horizontally, but when bending and turning, allows free movement.

Premiere Vision Denim was held in Barcelona last week. © Adrian Wilson

Girbaud wasn’t the only one promoting this idea in Barcelona. He has, however, also teamed up with new technology leader Jeanologia to promote the Wattwash water-free process combining ozone and laser finishing treatments.

“In the past I made mistakes with promoting chemical treatments, acid washing and stonewashing, generating water waste and pollution,” he said. “Many people copied me, but they were wrong to do so. We all didn’t know any better back then. Now I really hope they will copy me again, in order to put things right.”

Responsible innovation

During a panel discussion held during the show, Trevor Griffiths, head of design at Pepe Jeans London, suggested the industry should no longer talk about sustainability, but ‘responsible innovation’.

“Sustainability has become an industry-standard cliché and consumers don’t understand it or care,” he said. “In the past two years there has been a big change with the introduction of ozone and laser treatments at various production stages in denim manufacturing and we have jumped on that. It’s very new and it’s starting to clean up the industry, but in setting a precedent, we have had to go to market with the resulting products and that was a big change. Our TruBlu range employed zero chemicals and less than five litres of water in the production of each pair of jeans. The range achieved the best sell-through rates ever, and we communicated it through all channels. It wasn’t sold on any sustainability message, however, but because it was a beautiful product. The consumer doesn’t care in the slightest about sustainability and that’s something we have to be aware of, but this message somehow came across.”

”¢	High stretch performance is among the key combinations of properties required for selective consumers of high-end jeans in 2016. © Adrian Wilson

Over a billion pairs of denim jeans are now sold annually and the variation in styles, constructions and finishing techniques would astound the average consumer.

“New technologies bring new problems to solve, and today fabrics are no different to mobile phones in this respect,” said Hamit Yanici, general manager at Calik, the Turkish denim producer which is a key Invista Lycra partner. “They need to be constantly updated. All of the problems that have had to be overcome have been the result of new progress in comfort and shape for the wearer.

“Shaping your body is just like photoshopping your image for Facebook or Instagram – getting the best angle and most flattering appearance – that’s what we’re doing for the silhouette – adding something extra with a moulding effect.”

Denim as the industrial worker’s staple was invented by Levi Strauss. © Adrian Wilson

He identified the key combinations of properties required for selective consumers of high-end jeans in 2016 as:

  • High stretch performance.
  • Low shrinkage.
  • Low ‘growth’, as in, no sagging.
  • Perfect recovery holding power.
  • No puckering.
  • A soft-hand feel.

All of these properties can be achieved with today’s highly-engineered constructions.

It’s all a long way from denim as the industrial worker’s staple invented by Levi Strauss all those years ago.

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