Year in Review: The TENCEL™ Denim Team Reflects on 2023
As 2023 draws to a close, the Lenzing team behind Carved in Blue is taking a moment to look back on the year. Read on to hear our impressions of the highs and lows, and some of the highlights of the year in denim collaborations.
Tuncay Kilickan, head of global business development, denim
We are reaching the end of 2023 and hoping for a better year ahead of us. If I look back to 2023, no doubt it was not an easy one for me, for the industry and for the world. I even heard many times people saying, “Covid was better,” but maybe due to the past challenges, it seems to be easier as we already went through them anyway.
For me particularly, I had a bad start to 2023 as my home country Türkiye had one of the most severe catastrophes of our history in February. The center of that catastrophe was the main hub of the Turkish denim industry, Kahramanmaraş. The earthquake really impacted almost 14 million people’s lives and yet those people established their new lives. But the denim industry showed solidarity and gave a hand to this region as expected, which really gives me the pride of being a part of this community/family.
The sustainability journey relentlessly carries on evolving, and we are learning new things every moment towards the target of making a better pair of jeans. However, it seems like we are not there yet to overcome some of the bottlenecks, and we need to carry on striving for it.
Considering all the challenges, I still think that 2023 was not a bad year indeed. Inflation is kind of controlled, stock levels are somehow reduced and the consumer confidence is slightly healed. That would give some motivation for our industry for a better 2024.
Reading articles and projections for 2024, probably the word “uncertainty” is the most commonly used term. Incidents out of our control such as geopolitical issues, macro-economic crises, climate change and more make it difficult to predict the year ahead of us, but as least from the parameters I can see, I’m personally hopeful about 2024. I guess we experienced enough of price-sensitive products, and this would not make any more sense for denim consumers. Even if it’s for free, why would they purchase another pair of skinny jeans? That’s why I think and hope we will start to see more differentiation in brands’ product ranges so that we capture more attention from the denim consumers. That wouldn’t be easy to do while the inventory levels were hitting year-records in 2023 for sure. That’s why I’m hopeful to see a variety in the market in 2024.
One more thing to underline would be that the claims like “buy less but buy better” became louder in 2023. I think that’s the right track for all of us, and we as the TENCEL™ Denim Team will try to emphasize this message as much as we can in 2024.
Something that we cannot miss to underline would be the retirement of Michael Kininmonth in 2023. He was an important figure for establishing TENCEL™ as a preferred fiber in our industry and also one of the founders of our Carved in Blue. Our blog post about his retirement was one of the most popular one of the whole year. Once again, on behalf of TENCEL™ denim team and Lenzing AG, I’d like to thank him intimately.
Happy New Year from Carved in Blue…
Dennis Hui, global business development manager, denim
2023 has been a wonderful year for us, although the business situation keeps at a slow movement. We can feel the denim community engines restart and everyone is seeking ideas and innovation to pump up their business. Likewise, the TENCEL™ Denim Team traveled around the world for tradeshows, exhibitions and visits to brands and designers as well as supply chain mill partners for idea exchange. We showcased in Kingpins Amsterdam, New York and Hong Kong, DenimsandJeans Show Vietnam, Intertextile China, etc. and we made uncountable visits to different regions for presentations and communications.
The TENCEL™ Denim Team continued to work closely with denim supply chain partners for innovation concepts. Throughout the whole year, we completed a series of collaboration projects such as:
The Zero Cotton Capsule Collection x Advance Denim x Officina+39, creating denim fabrics that have no cotton content, leveraging low-impact wood-based materials such as TENCEL™ Lyocell and TENCEL™ Modal. For this collaborative collection, Advance Denim created innovative fabrics using TENCEL™ fibers. The denim was then finished using Officina+39’s treatments, including an eco-friendly bleach and its Aqualess wash process that restricts water to rinsing steps to offer a 75 percent water savings. Together, the partners developed denim that has the same appearance as cotton jeans without the cotton.
The TCE x TENCEL™ Capsule Collection. By combining the vertical setup of denim jeans production together with sustainable TENCEL™ fibers and wash techniques from Jeanologia, this collection showcases a series of trendy denim effects with soft hand feel and a low-impact production process toward the industry.
The Kaihara x TENCEL™ x Jeanologia Collection has been a great opportunity for us to collaborate with the premium historical denim mill in the world. The adoption of botanic and biodegradable materials TENCEL™ fibers in denim fabrics allows Kaihara to expand into new application categories traditionally dominated by cotton while enabling their brand customers to achieve their sustainability goals with Japanese denim cultures. We combine the heritage and new sustainable concept in this collection.
Apart from commercial activities, we connect with association and educational partners as usual, such as The Mills Fabrica in Hong Kong and London for sustainable campaigns, Transformers ED for series of presentations and panel discussions, and the textile universities and design institutes for talks and workshops. We aim to pass our sustainable concepts and information to the public and new generations. We truly believe that the true sustainability should work closely with everyone in everywhere.
2024 will not be an easy year, but surely a brilliant year for innovations and sustainable concepts! Let’s stay creative and connected. The TENCEL™ Denim Team will keep our blue blood, blue brain and our blue ideas to the denim industry toward 2024!
With the year end coming, may I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!