Denim:EcoTextilenews Template 19/06/2008
ECOTEXTILENEWS
DENIM EVENT
Raw denim
The second edition of Denim by Première Vision held in Paris
last month confirmed that it is becoming an important show for
buyers with a 22% rise in visitor numbers who were looking for
premium denim, selvage looks and eco-lines. By John Mowbray.
The fledgling two-day show expanded into a
third hall with 61 exhibitors and attracted
1,500 visitors from 40 countries with most of
the buyers coming from France, Italy, Turkey
and the UK.
“We’ve noticed a serious upsurge in interest
from buyers for more organic and recycled
cotton goods and we’ve now launched a new
‘Tenerita’ denim range which is made from
GOTS certified organic cotton yarn blended
with recycled cotton taken from old-t-shirts,
old clothing stock and reclaimed cotton lint
from the production process,” Mitsuya Inagaki
of Tokyo-based Kowa Company Ltd told
Ecotextile News.
The company has already developed and
marketed a range of organic cotton household
textiles, but this is its first foray into eco-
friendly denim although the company is well-
established in the denim garment sector. “The
rough-cut recycled denim is woven with a
50:50 blended organic/recycled cotton yarn,”
said Inagaki, who noted the organic cotton
yarns are sourced from Peru, India and
Switzerland.
Freshtex is a German-based garment
finishing company which for the last two years
has been working on a new range of eco
finishes for denim. It presented its first Eco
collection for fall/winter 08/09 at the Paris
show.
“All our resins, fabrics and chlorine-free
finishing treatments in this collection are
certified organic by GOTS including all dyes,”
said sales director Mathias Braunagel who
noted this service is available through its GOTS
laundry and treatment centre in Ismir. The
company also has a similar set-up in Istanbul
and Poland together with production facilities
in Sri Lanka.
The company said at the show the vintage
look was the most sought after. “Soft vintage
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Photos by Stéphane Kossmann
© Première Vision SA
dirties dyed out of tea or leaves, substitute
resins, natural sandblastings and scraping,
natural look moustaches, wrinkles and bad
wash effects are all characteristics of our Eco
collection,” said Braunagel, “today the eco-
friendly finishes we apply are a substantial
proportion of our core denim collection and
our ambition is to achieve 50% of the
production with eco friendly treatments and
processes within the next 18 months.”
The company counts VF Corporation, and
brands such as Hugo boss and Wrangler as
clients and Braunagel says the firm is also
developing new recipes that consume less
resources and it is investigating alternative
energy sources to power its GOTS accredited
facilities.
However, in terms of performance, Freshtex
says that in the short-term buyers may have to
accept compromises on colourfastness if
natural dyes are used, some shade variations
within collections, slightly longer lead times and
slightly higher costs simply because of the low
volumes or substitute resins and treatments on
the market.
Higher prices
However, subsequent higher price tags for
sustainable treatments or organics can put off
retail customers according to Serhat Tosyali of
Kipas Denim from Turkey, which has developed
a organic denim collection. This denim
collection has been supplemented with clothing
made with blends of certified organic cotton
and soy bean fibre. “Buyers are complaining
that in Japan it can take six months to source
traditional indigo dyed jeans and the prices can
be up to five times higher than normal,” he
said.
In general, the Paris show revealed there was
still a good demand for luxury, high-end denim,
which positions itself nicely alongside value-
added eco-friendly produced denim and some
of the larger retailers such as H&M were said
to be moving more towards premium denim
instead of buying more lower-end product.
The next edition of the denim show will take
place between 3 – 4 December 2008 at the
Docks, Paris for spring/summer 2010 collections.
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