Mill Trends: The Latest in Who’s Doing What With TENCEL™
Since we’re all practicing social distancing, we’re bringing the market to you.
Carved in Blue caught up with a series of leading mills to find out what their key message is for this season, and what new styles they have with TENCEL™ Lyocell and Modal.
Here’s what they had to say.
AGI Denim, Pakistan
Henry Wong, product development and marketing director
This season AGI Denim is focused on two opposite ends of the spectrum: key innovations and quality-driven, value basics. There is nothing in the middle because now is not the moment to be mediocre. We have innovations from fiber to dyeing and finishing, as well as garment technologies. In the higher end of our Retro collection, TENCEL™ Lyocell plays an important role. The modern vintage denims in this collection marry the “marbled” finish look of vintage jeans with the amazing softness of Lyocell. We continue to offer our EverDark range of denims, which remain black after home laundry, powered by LENZING™ Modal Black.
Berto, Italy
Francesca Polato, marketing manager
Berto’s key message is “We are your Sustainable Denim Artisan.” This message to underline the real nature of Berto, we are a small company that is really closed to the customer, thanks to this, we can be compared to an artisan always ready to satisfy the requests of its customers. Of course, we carry on all our actions with a focus on sustainability, being a sustainable business for Berto is not the end goal but a shared value, a value of respect for people and the environment. All with the focus on denim, our core business. We have a really interesting group of fabrics that are made with a special blend of TENCEL™ Lyocell, linen and cotton. They have soft hand given by TENCEL™ Denim and unique rough image given by linen, all combined with indigo that ensures its inimitable and always changing aspect. We called it “aristocratic denim,” for an elegant, but casual look.
Bossa, Turkey
Özge Ozsoy, marketing chief
We know that the situation caused by COVID-19 is affecting everybody. It is hitting the people and the business. We want to be closer than ever to all the denim industry people, leaders and normal workers all around the world. We know that we have to do our part even better and stronger than before. We must respect the planet. With our collection, choosing trends and developing our taste to match fashion needs we are going forward in our mission. So, our message is simple: be more sustainable and this will benefit everybody. Sustainability is an opportunity, it’s not a limit.
Inspired from denim origins we create “Heritage” concept. Keeping our roots in the ground of denim history we created real heritage looks with innovations in technologies and contents. They are in the old flavors that we miss and the performance of the fabrics is superior. We have TENCEL™ Lyocell with REFIBRA™ technology and TENCEL™ Denim blended heritage rigid and comfort stretch denims. An “old-look, new denim” is born. This is the look you like with all the advanced performances discovered so far and together with the will to go towards a more sustainable way to produce and create wonderful denims. We combined TENCEL™ Modal softness with warm colors for cold weathers. These articles are in our ‘Fall in Love’ concept. Everybody has a dark side. Denim as well. Not just blue but all the tones from black to light grey. We used Modal Black with combining dark colors in our ‘Dark Side’ concept.
Badjatex, Indonesia
Amit Suresh, marketing manager
We are working on new line currently using fiber offerings from Lenzing. We are building collection around circularity using suitable fibers and sustainability taking care of the processes and chemicals.
Panther Denim, China
Tim Huesemann, sales director
Panther Denim’s key messages for this season are:
- Related to Earth, saving our Earth
- Improving the sustainability concept by using more recycled material and sustainable dyeing method and to make the whole supply chain more sustainable.
Our newest garment style which we offer with TENCEL™ Lyocell, include:
- Style: 5 Pockets Wide Leg
- Theme: Real (i.e. soft vintage)
- Blends: 73% Cotton 20% TENCEL™ lyocell 6% T400 1% Lycra
Royo, Spain
Santiago Rodriguez, sales manager
Our key message is sustainability and the new Dry Indigo® versions, the denim revolution.
We have long used TENCEL™ Lyocell fibers in our fabrics and
called them “SUAVE” (Spanish word for soft) as the adjective best defines this
line of products, due to their unique handfeel and fluidity.
For this season, SUAVE offers simple, feminine, easy to use and long-lasting
silhouettes, inspired by a minimalism trend. We have invested in a new collection
that is the blend of TENCEL™ Lyocell with linen as it creates fabric with a
rustic and natural look. In addition, we added as a novelty, the development of
TENCEL™ Lyocell with Eco Color technology which are specially conceived for
faded washes and tie dye techniques.
Naveena Denim Mills (NDM), Pakistan
Aydan Tüzün, executive director of global sales and marketing
For FW 21-22, our key message is JEANEROSITY. With JEANEROSITY, we refer to sustainability as a mindset change based on human values. Indeed, we believe that kindness, generosity and willingness are intrinsically linked to a sustainable lifestyle and, in this respect, we want to underline denim’s role as a symbol of generosity towards nature, toward others, towards ourselves. Of course, this message became much more meaningful and relevant in these unprecedented days we are in due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We use also TENCEL™ Lyocell in ZEVOLUTION fabrics, mainly for men’s collections. The blends are 66.5% TENCEL™ Lyocell, 32.5% Recycled Polyester, 1% spandex offered in indigo, blue/black, black, and black/black. We focused on 17% elasticity in 13,5 oz fabrics. We apply TENCEL™ Modal in our “Modal black” fabrics with 40% elasticity in 13.5 oz.
SOORTY, Pakistan
Eda Dikmen, marketing manager
Our key message for the season, and the spotlight we have focused heavily on considering all the recent, very heavy changes we as an industry are undergoing is to give our future generations better lives than what we had. Being Pakistan’s largest vertically integrated denim manufacturer creates a strength for us in this sense, as it enables us to offer a complete visibility and transparency through the supply chain—from fiber to jeans.
Our previous collection, CLIMATE JEANS was dedicated to our planet and the climate change and we had the intention to dedicate this upcoming one to Gen Z. The world is changing drastically. As Heraclitus once said: “The only constant in life is change.” Now, we are seeing that not only Gen Zs, but all our lifestyles will be totally disrupted after the pandemic as we will even be more sensitive to global issues. Hence, we have shifted to the ‘human’ value of things since we, at Soorty, see DENIM AS A POWER OF GOOD. We want to nurture hope and present possibilities, we want to re-discover the beauty of what our industry can make available, joining forces with the different players within our industry because we are all in this together. We will grow and evolve together—this is the CHANGEMAKER CULTURE. We need to realize how to use design as a tool to improve life.
Our approach is a holistic one towards the complete denim manufacturing process where we engineer products that look and feel fashionable while respecting our planet by smartly using its resources because a healthy planet means it’s good for the planet & good for our people. Over the past years, we have invested in disruptive technologies and have developed eco-efficient denim laundry systems reducing the use of water, chemicals and energy ensuring workers health and safety with a strong focus on the human element and are now introducing SmartCare that brings design for purpose together with technology and a conscious mindset for our days forward.
Responsible materials and conscious production are spread through the entire collection of fabrics for us in the AW2122 collection. So is the use of TENCEL™ Lyocell.
We see fabrics with TENCEL™ Lyocell content blends in our Everyday Essentials container, which covers the fabrics that will go with your everyday wardrobe—the perfect pair of jeans we all have in our wardrobe, the one that we reach out to, day after day. Bi-stretches, power stretches, clean looks with high recoveries, indigos and PFDGs, all engineered to provide comfort next to your skin in our, currently slowed down, high-speed lives.
We also have beautiful blends of TENCEL™ Lyocell with other very conscious materials, from linen to hemp, virgin or recycled cotton in our Circularity container. As its name suggests, this is the ultimate array of the most responsible manufacturing methods and raw materials – with each and every article within designed for purpose and designed to last. It is made to be future proof for today’s conscious consumer who is needing less, caring more and coming together for the new new-age. Technology, digitalization and innovation are our biggest enablers when it comes to using DENIM AS A SOURCE OF GOOD. The material resourcing has a huge impact on both the footprint and the life cycle of the end product designed, and driving from this mindset the circularity container offers a wide product range with different but all very soft and comfortable hand feels, looks and constructions.
- Cotton free fabrics family: Ideal for unisex or genderless looks, our cotton-free denim fabrics are designed to enhance the use of sustainable fibers and enable the brands to combine sustainable alternatives and a premium style.
- Recycled fabrics family: Using post-industrial and post-consumer waste, we close the loop by reintroducing manufacturing scrap rejects, trimmings that never make it into the customer’s hands or jeans that are no longer wanted by their wearer.
- Eco blends: INCONSCPIOUSLY GOOD—the Nurtured Nature. With nature being the ultimate inspiration for us designing goods and materials that will be loved the eco blends offer a pure realization of circularity and consciousness by bringing nature’s gifts like linen and hemp into the denim scene.
Nostalgia, the part of the collection where sustainability echoes with longevity is our container of high-quality fabrics of authentic looks and luxurious vintage definitions for the “true denim lovers.” Woven today with the best materials to be the vintage of tomorrow we have TENCEL™ Lyocell blends here as well; as parts of denim fabrics that look and feel as rock & roll as denim should while providing an extra nice hand touch.
At Soorty, we call ourselves engineers at heart with a need to be regenerative by design. Circularity and Minus Zero Waste are two concepts that are at the core of all we do for a while now, and design for purpose has a vital role here. Harnessing and utilizing raw materials with this focus is a big part of designing for purpose. Considering that it is 100% biodegradable and the colored pigments are added to the fiber when it is being spun, we are happy to be engineering new looks and fabrics with TENCEL™ Modal. It not only adds a natural comfort, smoothness and versatility to our fabrics but also gives the option to do so in a variety of color options.
As part of our Lifestyle container which is bringing traditional craft processes, responsible resourcing and digital technologies together to spark an emotional connection, we have a beautiful coating that has a unique shine and a soft touch. The fabric is composed by utilizing both TENCEL™ Lyocell and Modal—we not only love the touch or the look but also the fact of low water consumption in fiber stage of this non-cotton fabric.