Recycled denim: a breakthrough?
voguebusiness.com
voguebusiness.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyocell
is a variant of rayon.
They're making out that they're making new denim from old denim. In that respect, it's deceptive.
https://www.undershirts.co.uk/blogs/research/viscose-vs-moda...
Having owned several articles of clothing made from both, they're very much not the same — in particular, lyocell lasts a lot longer.
So it’s the last choice, but most clothes today just end up in the trash, since durability is fairly awful. Even after one wash some clothes start to lose their shape and color. What will the durability of recycled clothes look like if the recycling inputs are so poor? Will people pay any less for these clothes?
I wonder if brands will be trying to recycle clothes that have never been worn but went out of fashion?
I buy decent jeans once a year. The new pair is for daily wear. The old pair is retired for manual labor. The old-old pair is retired to when I crawl under the house.
> I buy decent jeans once a year.
WHAT? I have jeans I got 10 years ago and are still good. And they weren't even expensive
I wear the same pair daily to do pretty much everything. I work, I shop, pick the kids up, walk to my parents house, do yard work, hike, literally everything in the same pair of jeans. I don't think there's a fabric yet made that could withstand the abuse I put on them for more than a year.
Although this pair I'm about to replace is at 16 months so I will revise to say "about a year"
~$40/yr wasn't so bad.
[EDIT] Oh, and for the record, I minimized washing, though I wasn't as hardcore about it as some people who claim to go months between washes. Every wash seemed to age them a couple weeks worth of wearing.
These days, I wear a lot more wool, linen, and cotton/linen blends for light-duty, and wear a single pair of Prana Zions (very thin mid-tier hiking pants, synthetic material) for anything risky/dirty. The Zions are probably at something like 1,000 wears (for the first couple years I wore them kinda like I had my jeans before—for everything) over five years or so. About a penny per wear. Finally due to be replaced, starting to get enough holes that they're getting iffy for wearing around... people, at all. If I hadn't damaged them with sharp things a few times, they'd probably go another 500+ wears, they're not getting worn-looking anywhere, no stains have proven permanent, nor is any part of them fraying (except at the holes).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century...
Also: is it me or about 20 years ago a pair of jeans lasted way longer than they currently do? Maybe thinner materials were introduced for softness?
If it's about being quality, why only for men though?
That's not what I said.
While what you think I said is not a good look, neither is a white man trying to dictate what women wear. The elastic jeans thing is a ship that sailed a long time ago.
Also if you’ve ever shopped with women, the amount of effort that goes into finding a pair that fit at all is appalling. Elastic gives you a fudge factor to buy pants that don’t actually fit but do.
In my experience, good quality clothing can be found near unfathomably cheap (in the U.S. atleast) at estate sales in/around historically middle-upper class neighborhoods of cities. Or rich zip codes in general.
It’s even better if you’re a bit smaller than average or in good physical shape - you can simply buy larger articles made of quality materials & self-tailor or pay a bit to have them fitted to your body.
You may miss some small QoL improvements & gimmicks modern day clothing can have, like recessed pockets with near invisible zippers or tucked away phone holders, but those can also be added by anybody who’s decent at handiwork.
Building your own wardrobe is fairly easy this way IMO - I don’t think I could say the same for supplying an entire family though.
I fabric “normal” jeans without elastane or polyester are pretty easy to find if you pay attention, they have to say their material on the tag.
Painful clothing is fucking bullshit.
Fabric manufacturers trending towards thinner and stretchier fabrics is primarily driven by production factors. Most dramatically, cutting the fabric. Stretchy fabrics are more accommodating to lay out flat for cutting, and thinner fabrics increase layer count in cut stacks [0]. Cutting thick stacks like this isn't remotely consistent, and why different instances of the same size garmet often vary in fit and size. Stretchy fabrics can be made with less precision and still "fit", reducing quality constraints to allow cheaper methods.
Recently they flip flopped and Patagonia has the heaviest jeans I’ve ever seen. To rival Carhart. But they’re also a weird blend of cellulose derived fiber and recycled plastic. Not a fan of the plastic, recycled or no it’s going out my dryer vent.
Exactly. In the end, it ends up as micro-plastics in the water
They've become daily normal-comfort normal-fashion wear rather than work wear. Of course they aren't as durable on average - it's a completely different material at this point, sold for a different purpose.
Durable stuff still exists, it's just harder to find because it shares the same name.
I've got to believe one of the most commonly available jeans in the US are the Kirland ones, and they're just plain 100% cotton denim. Mid-weight, 14.5oz, but plenty durable.
These days jeans always include at least some stretchy fibers. And I get the impression that many aren't even really broken in; the color patterns are woven into them to mimic that look.
Now, literally pre-ripped pants... that I'll admit seems like a real waste. I can offer no defense for that.
Definitely not so. A basic pair of Kirkland 14.5oz denim jeans from Costco ($13.99!) are still 100% cotton. Dad jeans though they may be, they are my favorite jeans nowadays. For one, they still include enough belt loops, something that many other manufacturers (cough Levi cough) have been skimping on.
The oldest pair he made for me is from 2014. It looks like new still.
I pay between 80–150€ per pair depending on fabric price and gimmicks I ask for (e.g. pockets under the waist belt, extra coin pockets, etc.).
One thing I always do is have him add a hem from some high endurance material (>50k Martindale or the like) at the inseam.
This is where most jeans come apart and start looking like they shouldn't be worn anymore as this is the area that rubs against the shoes or ground and gets exposed to the elements most.
ah, marketing speech: this is a semi-synthetic material, like we've had for decades.
Better to recycle old jeans than throwing them away, but it's not the same kind of recycling as glass.
Maybe it comes down to differences in climate and body physiology.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=washing...
Whilst it has a variety of properties, when exposed to near infrared light (red light) because it penetrates the tissue more deeply, MB's activity greatly increases its anti bacterial, anti viral, anti cytokine, anti-fungal, anti depressant (MAOI), and more activity. Its a rapid electro donor, some 30times faster than auto oxidation in the mitochondria, and unlike vit C, another electron donor, it increases the conversion of ferric iron (state3) into ferrous (state2) iron helping to improve physical performance which is why its an effective treatment for methemoglobinemia.
The main reason it fell out of medical fashion? The blue stain gets everywhere! Used extensively by the US Navy, it even helped coin its own saying "Even at the loo, we see, we pee, navy blue".
But this is how denim was self cleaning, leave the clothing out in the sun and the dye got to work on the bacteria you'd find in your clothes, and whilst copper rivets in jeans were used to hold the clothes together in a rugged fashion, the copper also helped play its part in being an antibacterial implement.
Whilst the medical profession are revisiting it, its cited as cancerous, but this was based on a lifelong study on F344 rats which are a 1920's breed of rat, that were inbred and predisposed to various cancers and thus became one of the cancer model rats. This appears to be a form of vested interest manipulation by some sectors of the scientific community in order to manipulate decision makers so much so its enough for Canada and the UK to ban it!
But that is how Denim self cleans.
I always assumed "self cleaning" was a bit of myth and mystique amongst denim-heads, attributable to the density of weave and the "patina" denim can get that makes it effective at resisting stains, etc. "Nah dude, my jeans are MAGIC!"
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