Revisiting 3 Decades of TENCEL™ Denim Moments
In 2022, the TENCEL™ brand is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Over the years, the fibers have found a place in the denim world, both on their own and mixed with blending partners like cotton.
The TENCEL™ team is looking back on some of the key denim moments in the material’s history with a mini exhibit of brand collaborations. Originally on view at Lenzing’s headquarters in Austria, the display will also be shown at the upcoming Kingpins Show in New York on July 20-21.
Below, take a trip through our archives to see how TENCEL™ has been used in denim.
1995
Democracy
TENCEL™-Town
Democracy designer Michael Glasser was an early adopter of the soft denim look. He started his line of casual TENCEL™ lyocell separates in the early 1990s. “[I] just fell in love with the touch of it, the way it drapes,” he said. “I thought if I designed with cotton and everything else, it would lose its power in my selling. We decided to just use TENCEL™. People thought we were crazy.”
1997
AgoldE
Trailblazing TENCEL™
Adriano Goldschmied may be the “Godfather of Denim,” and an originator of premium denim, but he is also a trailblazer in using TENCEL™ for denim. His brand AgoldE, which he co-founded with Ron Herman in 1993, launched a TENCEL™ collection in 1997.
1999
Levi’s
Engineered Jean
In 1999, Levi Strauss created its Engineered Jean (left) in an effort to court younger consumers. This marked a progressive move away from 100 percent cotton denim, using TENCEL™ lyocell in the weft and cotton in the warp. This denim was primarily sold as raw denim, creating a “Raw Comfort” concept.
2006
Levi’s
Rich & Skinny
2006 saw the launch of Levi’s Rich & Skinny collection, which added more TENCEL™ as well as stretch material to denim. Seven for All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity founder Michael Glasser and Joie Rucker, the founder and designer of Joie Jeans and head designer for Levi’s and Guess, came together for this line. Taking inspiration from European denim, the pair created super soft and stretchy fabrics, launching the skinny jean and thrusting TENCEL™ Denim into the Los Angeles premium denim market.
2014
G-Star Raw
Raw for the Oceans
By the 2010s, concern for the environment heated up. G-Star Raw had begun using eco-friendly materials like organic cotton, TENCEL™ and recycled polyester. In 2014, the brand collaborated with musician Pharrell Williams, who was the brand ambassador for Bionic Yarns, a company creating threads made of recycled ocean plastic. Together they aimed to recover the amount of plastic within 2 million containers.
2018
Ralph Lauren
In the Games
For the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, the United States’ outfitter Ralph Lauren used TENCEL™ for the uniforms’ denim.