TENCEL™ Denim Mill Update: Americas
To see the versatility and value proposition of TENCEL™ fibers, look no further than the denim world. Mills are leveraging the wood-based fibers to create jean materials that are soft yet strong, with a lower impact.
TENCEL™ Lyocell is made from trees using a closed-loop process that captures and reuses 99 percent of solvents and water used. In addition to the eco-friendly production behind TENCEL™ Lyocell, our REFIBRA™ technology enables circularity by replacing a portion of inputs with chemically recycled cotton waste.
Carved in Blue caught up with mills in North America to hear how they are using TENCEL™ and TENCEL™ x REFIBRA™ in their collections. More from Cone Denim, Global Denim and Tavex below.
CONE DENIM
United States
Pierette Scavuzzo, design director
Carved in Blue: What is your group name/theme for TENCEL™ Denim?
Pierette: TENCEL™ fibers are important components featured throughout our FW’22 seasonal trend collections. The TENCEL™ lyocell and TENCEL™ Modal fibers fit perfectly into our “Natural Comforts” capsule collection, which is inherently soft, comfortable, and sustainable. We worked with longtime denim friend and natural dye artist Maegan Neubeck to create some natural dyes on our Bliss product, which is an authentic ecru fabric with TENCEL™ fibers.
We’ve also included TENCEL™ Lyocell in our “Cone Denim Hemp” collection. TENCEL™ Lyocell and hemp pair well together—a great sustainable match. Our featured product Reyes uses a blend of fiber-dyed modal and our Indigo Revive yarn. Our Indigo Revive yarn takes our recycled dye waste and creates a yarn out of it, eliminating another dye run, and allows us to conserve 65 percent water with this circular yarn approach.
We are proud to partner with Lenzing on the development of TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo technology, an innovative eco-responsible alternative to traditional indigo dyeing. We are planning to feature these fabrics in our Future Indigo capsule collection releasing late summer.
Carved in Blue: What does TENCEL™ Lyocell bring to your collections?
Pierette: For us at Cone, TENCEL™ Lyocell fiber is a soft, sustainable complement to our authentic and heritage-inspired constructions from rigid to stretch. Blending TENCEL™ Lyocell into our constructions provides a lovely juxtaposition to authentic, rustic fibers like hemp.
Carved in Blue: Do you have any new developments with REFIBRA™ Technology?
Pierette: We’re excited to launch our latest REFIBRA™ Technology offering as part of our unique Cone Community Collection promoting clean water. This selvage fabric is an undyed ecru made in a Cotton and REFIBRA™ blend with teal selvage ID.
The Cone Community Collection of fabrics is designed to support and raise awareness for worthy causes that align with the values and soul of Cone Denim. This season, we are pleased to launch our newest fabric in support of efforts to end the global water crisis and increase access to clean water around the world. Cone will donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of our water-inspired Clean Water selvage denim to Water.org, an international nonprofit organization that has positively transformed millions of lives around the world with access to safe water and sanitation.
GLOBAL DENIM
Mexico
Anatt Finkler, creative director
Carved in Blue: What is your group name/theme for TENCEL™ Denim?
Anatt: Our core group name for our TENCEL™ Lyocell group is called “Bluefeel”; nevertheless, we have other groupings that include TENCEL™ Lyocell into the mix, such as the “Superflex,” which includes—as the name states—fabrics that have a high stretch content, amazing performance and recovery, and our Circle group, which is our top sustainability concept made with TENCEL™ Lyocell and recycled cotton in its dyed, over dyed and undyed versions.
Carved in Blue: What does TENCEL™ Lyocell bring to your collections?
Anatt: TENCEL™ Lyocell offers many benefits to our fabrics. In addition to providing very good strength and a great sustainability asset, TENCEL™ Lyocell brings an amazing feel, touch and softness—key elements to what the current consumer wants when it comes to wearing their denim. It also offers a lighter feeling on the body, smoothness and excellent drape quality—factors that give designers a lot of new design and fashion possibilities, both to the men’s and women’s market.
TAVEX
Mexico
Mike Daniel, commercial director
Carved in Blue: What is your group name/theme for TENCEL™ Denim?
Mike: Eco-Stretch and Cotton Less Denim.
Carved in Blue: What does TENCEL™ Lyocell bring to your collections?
Mike: We continue increasing our Eco-Stretch family, which consists of sustainable fabrics as a result of their TENCEL™ fiber content, with soft hand and great recovery. These products offer premium looks and deep indigo colors. The aim is keeping the consumer comfortable in their day-to-day with freedom of motion while maintaining shape.
We launched our Cotton Less Denim (CLD) collection one year ago, and it has been a real success! It is achieved with the use of TENCEL™ Lyocell fiber instead of a traditional cotton blend.
Carved in Blue: Do you have any new developments with REFIBRA™?
Mike: At the moment, we do not have any fabric in production with REFIBRA™, however we are always innovating, and this undoubtedly leads us to be developing new products including several with REFIBRA™.
