Denim is an integral part of everybody’s lives with almost everyone across the globe owning a few pairs of it at least. Despite the range of innovative materials available today denim still remains one of the most versatile, durable, and highly sought after fabrics in the global market. The beauty of denim is that over the years denim has managed to transcend gender, age, class, and culture.

Denim is an integral part of everybody’s lives with almost everyone across the globe owning a few pairs of it at least. Despite the range of innovative materials available today denim still remains one of the most versatile, durable, and highly sought after fabrics in the global market. The beauty of denim is that over the years denim has managed to transcend gender, age, class, and culture.

Denim fabric is said to have been born in Nimes, France. The fabric weavers of Nimes were attempting to replicate a hard weaving cotton fabric called “Jeane” (named after the city of Genoa, Italy); however, these fabric weavers were unsuccessful in doing so, but this unsuccessful replication attempt resulted in the emergence of a unique, and sturdy fabric never before seen called denim fabric. The denim fabric was made using the technique of twill weave (a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs) using warp, and weft threads. The fabric weavers then used indigo to dye the warp threads blue, but the weft was left to its natural white color. This process produced a fabric with blue, and white colors on it, and this fabric was called Serge de Nimes (twill of Nimes).

Now the denim fabric was prepared; however, it wouldn’t be for quite some time that the jeans as it is known today would be made. Levi Strauss had moved from Germany to New York in order to help out his older brother in the family’s dry goods business. In 1853 Levi heard of a gold rush in the West, so he decided to move to San Francisco to open a branch of the dry goods business. Levi sold many products one of which was the imported cotton fabric.

One of the customers of Levi was Jacob W. Davis who was in the business of producing tents, horse blankets, and wagon covers. Davis was commissioned by a gold mining company to create trousers that were strong and could withstand hard work. Davis then managed to improve the strength, and durability of the denim workwear using metal rivets, and his creation worked successfully, so he decided to partner with Levi. Eventually, the two became partners, and in 1873 received a patent for their denim workwear. They started manufacturing denim overalls in the 1870s and created their 1st pair of jeans in the 1890s. The competition for the denim market then emerged in the 20th century with big names such as Wrangler (1905), and Lee (1911).

In the early 20th century denim was the fabric of choice for cowboys, miners, farmers, etc., in the US since the denim fabric was cheap, durable, and more sturdy than its alternatives. In the 1940s due to the war, the production of denim workwear declined due to a shortage of the raw material, but the end of the war marked drastic changes in the perception of denim since these became associated now with leisurewear instead of just workwear. In the 1950s Denim rose to fame as its dark hue, and stiffness made it a popular fabric among the younger generation especially those that wore these for leisure. As more people began wearing denim overalls its name also lost meaning, and people started calling these jeans. Other countries especially in Europe at this time also began adopting denim overalls among their clothes. This trend continued, and by the 2000s new customizations to denim became popular resulting in the emergence of a large number of denim trends such as ripped jeans, skinny fits, etc.

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Stone washing is an essential part of manufacturing denim since it is useful for increasing the softness, and flexibility of the stiff, and rigid denim. Moreover, stone washing also helps produce a worn in, or worn out look for a denim. Thus, stone washing is an essential component for manufacturing denim.

Today, the most used tool for stone washing around the world is Pumice stone; however, Pumice stones are environmentally unsustainable and less effective than their alternative Hand Made Stones (HMS). When conducting the stone washing process with Pumice stones there would be a considerable wastage of electricity since Pumice stones aren’t effective in washing denim with cold water. Thus, in order to use Pumice stones, there would be a need to heat water which takes up electricity and adds to the costs for a company. On the other hand, HMS can work in cold water, so all the costs associated with heating water would be removed, thus, boosting the revenue of companies, and reducing their environmental impact simultaneously. One of the biggest disadvantages of Pumice stones lies in the fact that these stones come in fixed sizes, so these stones can’t be customized to the needs of the denim which greatly limits the options available for denim fashion. Consequently, HMS is customizable to the demands of denim. Each size of HMS is useful for different fabrics and different stone-wash processes. Thus, HMS can expand the fashion possibilities with denim making them more effective than Pumice stones. HMS is far more effective than Pumice stones since it requires 20% less water per a load of denim than Pumice stones as HMS doesn’t soak water, so companies can limit their water consumption in stone washing through the use of HMS instead of Pumice stones. Moreover, HMS takes up a smaller duration of time in order to wash the same load of denim in comparison to Pumice stones, and continuous washes increase this difference exponentially in favour of HMS making it time-efficient. Further, denim doesn’t need to be rinsed after stone washing with HMS since it doesn’t leave a residue like dust on the denim. Finally, HMS is made of Pumice dust, and biodegradable materials making it environmentally sustainable, unlike Pumice stones which need to be mined and leave behind a residue after every stone wash. It’s not too late though to switch to HMS and reap its effectiveness.

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