Blue Cast: Inside Our Zero Cotton Collection Collaboration
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 408.
TENCEL™ fibers have a lot of pluses for denim, including strength, soft hand feel and durability. But the aesthetic of 100 percent TENCEL™ garments has typically been disparate from cotton-centric denim.
Lenzing recently partnered with denim mill Advance Denim and chemical firm Officina+39 to make fully TENCEL™ jeans that look and feel like cotton. Combining their respective expertise, they created garments with low-impact finishing techniques that mimic classic jeans.
On the latest episode of our Blue Cast podcast, Lenzing’s Tuncay Kilickan was joined by Advance Denim director Michael Lam and Officina+39 managing director Andrea Venier. The trio dove into their denim collaboration, including the challenges and opportunities of forgoing cotton.
Prior to this partnership, Advance Denim had a zero-cotton fabric range. Michael explained that although cotton is more eco-friendly than synthetics, it still has a bigger environmental footprint than other fiber choices. Hemp is better for the planet, but comes with a rough feel. The answer for a cotton replacement is therefore cellulosic fibers. While wood-based fibers like rayon can be blended in cotton jeans, Michael noted that for a higher fiber content in denim, his pick is TENCEL™.
One of TENCEL™’s benefits is a soft hand feel, which is trending right now. “The hand feel of TENCEL™ is much softer, and also that kind of drape which as you know, cotton cannot give us,” Michael said.
While fibers like TENCEL™ have been used for lower weight fabrics—such as those for shirting—and women’s denim, this new collection makes 100 percent TENCEL™ jeans a better fit for men as well.
“We are opening the opportunity for the designer to work with these type of fabric mills that really, as we saw during the washing, during the treatments in our development center, we are able with the same practice to obtain some real softer hand feel, but as well, we can achieve dry hand feel that is more typical of the vintage authentical look,” said Andrea.
Another bonus is improved production efficiency. TENCEL™ is made from natural sources, but the manufacturing is standardized, so fibers come out identically. It is also more efficient for dyeing, since lyocell has better dye absorbency and requires fewer baths for rinsing, saving 30 percent of water compared to cotton jeans.
However, despite these production benefits, using new technologies on unfamiliar and new fabrics comes with its own challenges.
“The road to create a new product is always filled with struggles and failures,” said Andrea. “But what we learn in these years, everyday we can make choices between difficult or easy paths. Someone prefer the easy path, as their comfort zone, while we love challenges.”
Brands are already catching on to cotton-free denim. For instance, Denham uses Advanced Denim’s fabrics for its Zero Cotton Denim, which it says are the “same jeans, but greener.”
“That kind of concept is being really success to push in the market, because you have the most sustainable denim fabric in the market, and then also, it doesn’t really look like ordinary TENCEL™ denim,” said Michael.
Listen to the episode here.