Dry-Indigo?

Levi Strauss is said to have revolutionised workwear by splicing the edges of work pants’ pockets and reinforcing the attached fly with the rivets of a horse’s harness. These reinforced pants sold like hot cakes and rose to worldwide fame. Today, denim pants are as popular as ever as workwear. The production of the blue fabric for these pants, however, consumes plenty of water. However, in parallel to the solutions for sustainability in textiles, denim industry appears to offer its own innovative approaches for the problem. Wrangler, for example, has contributed the sustainability in denim such that it is the first denim brand to employ a water-saving foam-based dyeing process to optimise the eco-balance and become more sustainable. Recently, global apparel retailer Gap Inc. has announced an initiative to produce denim using a waterless, indigo foam-dyeing technique, starting with a partnership between Banana Republic and Spanish denim mill, Tejidos Royo.

Tejidos Royo, a Spanish textile producer, is the first production site to introduce foam-based dyeing under the name “Dry Indigo®”. After 10 years of research and development, in collaboration with Gaston Systems Inc. and Indigo Mill Designs (IMD), Tejidos Royo has managed to modify the process of conventional indigo dyeing, creating a unique dyeing process which dyes indigo without water in a very reduce space, minimizing drastically its environmental impact and obtaining a unique color in the market. Certified and guaranteed technology under the ECO – TECHNOLOGY certificate by AITEX (textile research institute), Dry Indigo® offers 100% less water for Dyeing, 89% less chemicals, 65% reduced energy usage, and zero water discharge.

Given the positive consumer responses in the sustainable denim market, we will facing many more innovations in the near future.