TENCEL™ Denim Trends: The Latest from Mills in Bangladesh
Since in-person trade shows are still put on hold, Carved in Blue is taking an opportunity to digitally connect with its community.
Conventional denim has a significant environmental footprint, but mills are innovating to create materials with less impact. This includes switching to cotton alternatives or blends that include more eco-friendly fibers.
We caught up with denim mills in Bangladesh to hear their thoughts on low-impact denim and how they are incorporating wood-based TENCEL™ branded fibers into their collections.
BEXIMCO
Bangladesh
S. Adil Hasan, general manager denim product development and sales support
Carved in Blue: What new groups are you promoting with TENCEL™?
Adil: There has been a great focus from customers on the zero cotton products, which is definitely a big sustainable approach towards saving water. We are therefore working on products where we combine TENCEL™ with modal, viscose, etc. and bring the product similar to a look of a cotton product but that feels super soft when wearing.
In addition to this, we have seen a lot focus during this pandemic on the soft touch, easy go out, comfortable products with fashion elements to be used while working from home or staying home for long, and for this TENCEL™ is the preferred product, and we are expanding the line of our products in the TENCEL™ range and also with other blends to open up new offerings to the customer.
Carved in Blue: How do you define the value of lower impact denim?
Adil: The beauty of the denim lies in its core processes, which creates such a beautiful product. However, those processes were not environmentally friendly and have given a lot of harm to our mother earth. But now with advancement in the technology, machines, lots of research and development at every stage—whether it’s fiber, spinning, dyeing, washing, etc.—it has become possible to create the same beautiful product without impacting much to the environment.
A denim made up of recycled contents gives a lot of savings in all over supply chain. A low impact denim in results saves a lot of water from cotton field to end product, chemical usage in fabric processing and garment washing, less harm to the workers in laundry, less energy consumption and recycling the water back into the process. Hence all these steps are contributing towards low impact denim, and this is what denim’s future is all about.
NZ DENIM
Bangladesh
Jasim Uddin, project director
Carved in Blue: How do you define the value of lower impact denim?
Jasim: Lower impact denim is of great value for the environment as it is focusing from fiber to fabric dyeing to finishing process. At every stage, from fiber, where it is focusing on recycled organic cotton, to dyeing processing where there will be 55 percent less consumption of water, and in finishing there will be substantial reduction of water, energy and chemical use with great traceability system and carbon footprint what will let the final customers know how much environmental impact they are being responsible for.
SHASHA DENIM
Bangladesh
Jamal Abdun Naser, director
Carved in Blue: What new groups are you promoting with TENCEL™?
Jamal: As you are aware, Shasha is always into developments and tries to promote all new things in the market. Before going into your reply, I would like to give you some information.
Previously we were doing 100 percent TENCEL™ or cotton TENCEL™ mixed with ratios in different construction, and gradually it gave good vibe in the market and later there were big fights in the market due to price.
To establish the promotion for TENCEL™/Modal/REFIBRA™/Modal Black in the market and after several developments and analysis, we started giving different composition fabrics mixing with TENCEL™ brand fiber as like:
- TENCEL™/poly/spandex,
- Modal/cotton/spandex
- TENCEL™/cotton/spandex
- Cotton/TENCEL™/poly/spandex
- TENCEL™/T-400
- Modal Black/poly/spandex
- Cotton/poly/lyocell/spandex
Other new promotions are considering the market situation and cost competition. We are in development with low percentage of TENCEL™ brand fibers or REFIBRA™ on the product to give the touch of softness and sustainability in the quality, but with a competitive price.
Carved in Blue: How do you define the value of lower impact denim?
Jamal: To accelerate our journey towards a sustainable reality, our denim industry has a significant impact by a positive force to change present environment into a greener world. We have all the resources to take more action and enable greater progress in our industry and make it sustainable for us, for our environment and for our future generation.
Our footsteps could be from sustainable raw materials like TENCEL™, REFIBRA™, modal, hemp, etc. and process wise, we can work on the dyeing and finishing part to minimize water and chemical management. This entire chain from fiber to process can make any product called as low impact. Moreover, being sustainable from process will have a huge reduction of carbon and this will help the environment to convert into greener. The value of producing low impact denim is limitless.