Slideshow: The TENCEL™ Denim Team at New York’s Textile Shows
The textile industry converged on New York last week for a bevy of trade shows. Lenzing exhibited and spoke at Texworld NYC and Functional Fabric Fair, and our teams attended Première Vision New York.
For the Lenzing Denim team, the focus was on Kingpins New York from July 17-18. TENCEL™ was one of the show sponsors, and we had a booth to showcase our latest collections such as the TENCEL™ x Regenerative Cotton Denim Collection and Application Innovation Collection 2024. As usual, we had two busy days with many interactions with different segments of the industry.
Mill collections and collaborative projects presented different features of TENCEL™ fibers. Among the dominant trends from mills were looser fits with a soft and drapey hand feel and an authentic look, leveraging TENCEL™’s smooth characteristics.
TENCEL™ was also among the fibers used in the Oneness collection presented by Global Denim, Jeanologia and The Lycra Company that emphasizes nearshoring within the Americas.
Besides booths, there was plenty to explore. Lil Denim Jean presented the LDJ Museum, showcasing the most creative denim pieces made by designers throughout the world that they have collected via social media. There were also other exhibitions for inspiration, such as Buckleback Design, Decades of Denim, Deverazul, The Vintage Showroom, One Denim, Recycled Denim and more.
Material innovation was also on display, including AGI Denim’s collaboration with Ecovative that uses post-consumer denim waste as feed for mycelium, the root-like structures in fungi. Together, they created mycelium bricks that can be used for architecture and interior design. AGI Denim also used Ecovative’s Forager Foam made of mycelium for padded garments.
This show marked the 20th anniversary of Kingpins, which held the initial show in New York in 2004. To mark the occasion, there were extra events such as a catwalk and pool party.
In celebration of this milestone, the TENCEL™ Denim team collaborated with our friends and partners at Advance Denim to create a giveaway for our fellow denim lovers and community. We wanted to offer something different than traditional T-shirts and tote bags, and we came up with the idea to use a lightweight 100 percent TENCEL™ Lyocell indigo-dyed shirting fabric that would be a perfect application for a bandana, which will be a great accessory for denim enthusiasts.
Since this was indigo-dyed and TENCEL™ fibers have great laser ability, we used laser treatments to minimize the water usage in the finishing process. From there, we iterated several versions of designs until agreeing on our final design. Despite the tight turnaround time, we managed to create these just in time for the show. Kingpins visitors loved the bandana giveaways and we noticed that they were all gone by the second day! We saw many attendees and staff members wearing the bandanas in style and loved to hear that they were accepted well.
Matching the party atmosphere, all-in-all the mood was better among brands and as well as exhibitors. There is stronger demand in the market and less talk of inventory issues. Innovation in product and sustainability remains a topic that every brand is looking for, but the price is still a strong argument.
Before Kingpins, the TENCEL™ Denim Team also participated in Soorty’s Space D open house on July 16. Lenzing’s head of denim business development Tuncay Kilickan gave a presentation on the key messages of the Wildflower Collection developed in partnership with Soorty: durability and circularity. Some of the products created for the collection incorporate ECOVERO™ Viscose with REFIBRA™ Technology, the latest addition to the REFIBRA™ lineup. Other materials included TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology for deep indigo shades that keep their color and blends of recycled cotton and TENCEL™.
Click through the slideshow for a look at what we saw during the shows.
