Workshopping the Future of Denim Washing
It’s time to get out of the stone age, and Lenzing’s new laundry workshop in cooperation with Jeanologia wants to help designers and product developers do just that.
A Garment Processing Workshop will take place at CITEX in Puebla, Mexico on December 3rd. It is based around the technical requirements of fabrics with TENCELTM Lyocell in the laundry, and attendees will receive information on garment washing, garment dyeing and garment processing with the emphasis on new techniques and technologies.
“The goal of the workshop is to partner with members in the supply chain in order to produce high-quality and top-performing products for consumers,” said Victor Almeida, Lenzing customer service manager for the Americas.
Garment processing has undergone a dramatic shift over the last few years, and few know that as well as Almeida. As someone who’s worked with TENCELTM Lyocell for nearly three decades, he’s served as a witness to the evolution of the laundry wet processing industry—from the first days of learning about the new “fibrillation” property in a fiber, to discovering how these properties can be used as product enhancements.
Among the changes under his watch: the elimination of stones, beginning the use of enzymes, the drastic reduction of water and energy, the purge of chemical products and the intro of ozone finishing. Most recently, he’s watched what he described as “the equivalent of space-age technology” with the increasing use of laser treatments.
“The laundry wet processing industry has evolved over the years mainly due to environmental, sustainable, health and safety concerns and fashion,” Almeida told Carved in Blue. “It’s changed from when consumers had to buy denim jeans in a larger size, home-wash it several times because of high shrinkage, and then wash down the indigo before it was worn. Now we have garments ready to wear, with previously unthinkable embellishments available.”
To keep everyone up to speed on these advancements and enhancements, the workshop will educate attendees on the fundamentals of TENCELTM fibers, how to finish TENCELTM Denim garments using state-of-the-art tech, and the latest info on sustainable and environmentally responsible equipment and processing, said Begoña García, R&D sustainable processing manager at Jeanologia.
When it comes to the key benefits to laser and modern finishing, she added, there’s only one true limitation: imagination.
If you would like to attend, please email denim@lenzing.com