Blue Cast: Marmara Hemp’s Denis Druon on Hemp’s ‘Learning Curve’
Blue Cast is a podcast series from the TENCEL™ Denim team. Each episode features a conversation with a special guest from within the industry or the fringes of the denim community. The following is a recap of episode 410.
Hemp has solid roots in the denim world. The fibers were used in the earliest jeans, including the first Levi Strauss jeans that launched the workwear staple. However, in recent history, cotton has been the cellulosic power player in the industry.
Increasingly, the industry is cottoning on to the possibilities with hemp. And one of the companies supplying brands like Levi’s is France’s Marmara Hemp. On the most recent episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Denis Druon, CEO of The Flax Company and Marmara Hemp, chatted with Lenzing’s Tuncay Kilickan about hemp in denim.
The Flax Company had been cultivating flax for decades before it branched into hemp. It took two years to build the hemp supply chain and get certifications. Marmara’s hemp is grown in France. It is processed using mechanical rather than chemical methods, and the fibers are tested to ensure there are no traces of more than 300 chemicals.
Marmara is working with brand customers like Levi’s, Urban Outfitters and Inditex to teach them about hemp so they can communicate more effectively about it to the end consumer. For instance, some companies come to do field tours. “Hemp is not just a good marketing name to increase the sales. It has so much sustainable values behind [it] that it’s important that they come, they see, they get the guarantees,” Denis said.
Spinning hemp can be challenging. “The marketing people found [hemp] fantastic; the technical directors find it a nightmare,” said Denis. While spinners can use the same equipment as those used for cotton, they must make adjustments to account for the different fiber properties, such as using slower speeds and adding moisture. Denis noted that mills, as well as Marmara, are still in a “learning curve” of finding the right ingredient blends and compositions to create the best hand feel. And one mill customer has successfully been able to spin a blend of 55 percent hemp, greater than the 20 to 30 percent Marmara usually suggests.
Although flax and hemp are similar, flax is getting hit harder by climate change and drier, hotter weather than hemp. During this past warm growing season, during which there was no rain for about 60 days, the hemp harvest was still strong. “Hemp is a very, very rustic fiber, very hardy, very resilient, and since the roots are very big and strong, they can go very, very deep to take the water they need to grow,” Denis explained.
Where climate shifts have made more of a difference is in the timeline for retting, when hemp stalks are laid on the field so that moisture and microorganisms can separate the fiber from the wood. Marmara has moved this up from early September to early August, giving the hemp a longer period to decompose.
In addition to surviving the conditions created by a warming planet, hemp can have a positive sustainability effect, even though it may be a smaller blending partner. “The effect of adding 20 percent Marmara hemp in the denim is like putting an ice cube in a coffee to make an iced coffee,” said Denis. “Just 20, 25 percent, it completely changed the carbon footprint of the yarn and it changed the footprint of the denim for the brands.”
Despite hemp’s sustainability potential, last year consumption of Marmara’s hemp fiber dropped as brands prioritized their bottom line in a difficult retail climate. Denis sees a need for regulation to create change in this area. “Once the regulation is in place, then you have to follow the rules,” he said.
Listen to the episode here.