Mill Update: European Manufacturers on Denim’s Outlook and Opportunities
Due to their position in the supply chain, denim mills have a finger on the pulse of the category’s demand, trajectory and developments. In this series, Carved in Blue is catching up with mills around the globe to get their insights on sales performance, impactful innovations and projections for this year.
Here, Orta and Tüsa from Turkiye and Textil Santanderina from Spain provide their denim update.
ORTA
Sebla Önder, marketing and sustainability manager
Carved in Blue: How did your mill close 2023? What were the highs and lows of last year? How has 2024 been so far for your company?
Sebla: 2023 was a tough year for not only us but Turkiye due to the earthquake disaster we faced at the beginning of the year. Additionally, the still-going effects of the Russia and Ukraine war followed by high inflation in Europe and U.S. affected all businesses, not only textiles.
Fortunately for Orta, before the pandemic, we shifted our operations from huge capacities to value-added products engineered with optimized production parameters and eco credentials. We constructed this strategy to continue producing long-lasting good quality denim fabrics that people bound emotionally and physically and carry it to the future, which helped us to be resilient to disruptions mentioned above. It seems that also 2024 will be the year that we will still experience the effects of these problems.
While these were happening, the up for us would be the celebration of both Orta’s 70th year and 100th year of the Turkish Republic. We opened up our archives and brought back our key fabrics, memories our milestones and celebrated them with our stakeholders throughout the year.
Carved in Blue: What are the new opportunities of the current period in the denim industry, and where do you see TENCEL™ fibers fitting these?
Sebla: The denim industry is going back to its roots to produce fabrics with 100 percent natural or bio-based fibers. Certified cotton with different growing methods, natural fibers such as hemp and regenerated fibers have been key in developing such fabrics. This return happened due to the demand on responsible products, verifiable claims and the need of recyclable and/or biodegradable garments in line with the upcoming laws and regulations. All these make TENCEL™ fibers an important component of today’s and the future’s denim fabrics. The properties of TENCEL™ fibers such as being a natural-based product manufactured via responsible technologies to achieve low impact on the environment, as well as having versions with recycled raw materials, helps our denim fabrics greatly to become a low-impact product as well.
Carved in Blue: What’s the most interesting or exciting recent development you have seen in the industry from other companies or institutes? And what are you most excited about internally?
Sebla: We are of course experimenting on innovative fibers, dyestuff, technologies, etc., but lately we are very excited about our Natural Comfort family that we have been working on in the last couple of years. Orta engineers developed this fabric group with 100 percent natural fibers and achieved a comfort level stretch on the fabric for performance. We also added recycled cotton into the equation as an improvement to this family. So, the aim is to extend this family with other natural and/or bio-based fibers to achieve mechanically recyclable and/or potentially biodegradable fabrics.
Carved in Blue: Could you share three predictions for the denim industry in 2024?
Sebla: Trend wise, we see mixed interest on both quiet luxury and mob wife styles. While being two opposite sides of fashion, the luxury looks and feel as well as good quality aesthetics will be dominant this year.
Pricing wise, unfortunately, the price pressure will be the key concern of the business with the increased prices on transportation.
In terms of sustainability, with the near coming climate goals, low-impact or carbon-negative products and practices will continue to be on the top of our agendas.
TEXTIL SANTANDERINA
Ramon Rios, fashion general manager
Carved in Blue: How did your mill close 2023? What were the highs and lows of last year?
Ramon: We have closed the year 2023 in positive top line, achieving all our KPIs, as sales budget and inventory rotation between others.
Carved in Blue: How has 2024 been so far for your company?
Ramon: January slow in turnover but getting bigger orders so far than January 2023.
Carved in Blue: What are the new opportunities of the current period in the denim industry, and where do you see TENCEL™ fibers fitting these?
Ramon: TENCEL™ is inside the heart of our operations, for now more than 35 years and strongest than ever. Our aim is to do new developments around it, and blended with some new Lenzing technologies in latest fibers.
Carved in Blue: What’s the most interesting or exciting recent development you have seen in the industry from other companies or institutes? And what are you most excited about internally?
Ramon: Circular economy from the post-consumer point of view, targeting the aim 2030 as the challenge of this industry.
Our latest women’s collections, based in TENCEL™ blends and linen blends, as well as our latest super lightweight technologies, investing in new machinery for those.
Carved in Blue: Could you share three predictions for the denim industry in 2024?
Ramon: For sure lower demand, less customers will stand the hit, and price will vary depending on energy costs and supply chain globally, transport and tax regimes.
TÜSA
Vedat Kalay, sales and marketing director
Carved in Blue: How did your mill close 2023? What were the highs and lows of last year? How has 2024 been so far for your company?
Vedat: Due to the earthquake that struck at the beginning of 2023 and impacted 11 provinces in our country—including Maraş, where we continue our production—we attempted to mend our wounds for the first six months of 2023. After that, we carried on as before, working with full capacity for the second half of 2023.
As of 2024, the stagnation in both the textile and denim sectors observed globally, fluctuations in market conditions, and most importantly, the low purchasing trend of brands—especially in terms of the European market, which is one of our target markets—caused us to start 2024 more calmly compared to 2023.
Carved in Blue: What are the new opportunities of the current period in the denim industry, and where do you see TENCEL™ fibers fitting these?
Vedat: The availability of more raw materials presents new potential in our estimation, particularly for carbon-positive next-generation fibers, which have a backstory and can benefit the environment rather than harm it. Manufacturers will have more possibilities to test these fibers and incorporate them into their product lines as an outcome. Furthermore, it is promising that customers have begun to ask for such products.
Regenerative production systems are among the most popular and will remain talked-about fiber and production systems; on the other hand, recycled materials will continue to be incorporated. In this regard, while fibers with REFIBRA™ technology are important, TENCEL™ fibers will continue to maintain their importance both in terms of their contribution to long-lasting strength and their positive effect on the end of the cycle in terms of closing the loop.
Especially as an alternative to synthetic fibers, we think that fibers that are made partially or entirely from recycled materials and can be recycled after the product life cycle, or more ideally biodegradable or even compostable, will open new doors. Of course, there are also challenges such as scalability and cost factors that need to be solved first.
On the one hand, fibers such as banana fiber, hemp, linen, nettle, and Seacell will continue to be important in terms of sustainability and circularity. If we open another parenthesis in terms of TENCEL™ fibers, we think that products developed with matte TENCEL™ Lyocell can open new doors for TENCEL™ fans.
Carved in Blue: What’s the most interesting or exciting recent development you have seen in the industry from other companies or institutes? And what are you most excited about internally?
Vedat: What excites us most in the industry are brand collaborations on zero waste, upcycling and new life. This kind of open call-to-action for fellow brands to share existing materials, manufacturing and creative resources is empowering change. With these collaborations, a purposeful approach to the cult of brand alliances stimulates collective creativity by using dead stocks to solve the enduring problem of overproduction.
With a similar logic, we re-evaluate our stock fabrics using methods such as flock, print and laser to combat the problem of overproduction. Thus, while we bring new silhouettes and a new life to our fabrics in stock. On the other hand, we offer fast and practical solutions to our customers with trend-oriented expectations.
Carved in Blue: Could you share three predictions for the denim industry in 2024?
Vedat: It is predicted that 2024 will be a challenging year, primarily because of brand pressure on prices. In particular, increasing labor costs and increased general costs make it even more difficult to achieve competitive price targets from brands.
On the one hand, while the questioning of innovative fibers and recycled alternative raw material rates is promising in terms of sustainability, the fact that brands do not cooperate sufficiently with suppliers to meet these demands restricts the orientation of manufacturers and fabric suppliers towards these products.
However, all of these encourage producers to seek new markets and opportunities. At this point, we are able to sustain our excitement and innovations because of the promise of the different markets, and we are processing different R&D projects for different opportunities.
In terms of demands and trends, while rigid and comfort product inquiries are on the rise, we think that inquiries for alternatives that can respond to new colors and sustainable laundry processes and also have more sustainable resources will increase. As Tüsa Denim, we will aim to have long-term cooperation with both our customers and suppliers in terms of both fiber content and color richness.