What makes premium denims in L.A tick?

Often people wonder why of all the places Los Angeles became the Premium Denim capital of the world. How did the process of globalisation reverse in case of premium denims where the production sent overseas came back to US ?
L.A had a very developed denim production and large scale productions were done for companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, Pepe,Abercombie & Fitch,Calvin Klein etc..
Alongwith stitching, the facilities for washing and designing were quite developed.. However, as the orders for mass productions started going overseas, the producers were left with little choices . They had to either shut down or change the way they did business. Fortunately for them, Japan had revived the concept of Antique/Heritage denim where they were trying to replicate the Jeans from the 40s to 70s..
The concept was picked up by L.A manufacturers and they focused themselves on making small quantities of high priced Premium Denims.. All the infrastructure was in place(see this article by NY times)
The machine processes started getting replaced by hand processes (esp in washing). Companies like CAITAC GARMENT PROCESSING – which used to wash jeans for USD2 in bulk, started getting paid upto USD 30 for washing premium denims..Their sand blasting machines got replaced with various other alternative processes like balooning or small instruments which involved much more human touch – whether to create whiskers , distressed looks etc..Garment processors like Caitac became favourites of Premium denim companies like Sevens,Earl jeans,Earnest Sewn,True Religion etc..Later even Levi’s had to turn to Caitac to develop its premium denim line..

Now most of the premium denim labels outsource their stitching and washing .. They focus on marketing and use companies like Caitac to do all their work..

Now coming back to our question on why L.A became the Premium Denim capital :- It is because of availability of all infrastructure mentioned above . The companies could easily outsource their highly labour and specialised activities.. Biggest of all , there was a ready market nearby which was fired up with the Premium Denim trend …What other ingredients can one ask for to make a success of a business???

Also check out this interesting Audio slide from NY times on L.A Denim

Natural Indigo Dyed Jeans – Dyed 48 times ?

Can you believe that Denim can be dyed 48 TIMES ??

Well, seeing is believing. Here are some snaps from Kappa Jeans which claims to dye their Denims 48 times in NATURAL INDIGO..See here

and here

But whatever may be the actual number of dips in Indigo, the Denim is Really Cool..

Persimmon Juice Denim??

Ever hear of Persimmon Juice Denim ?
Persimmon – tanin dyeing is a Japanese dyeing and is called Kaki – Shibu Dyeing.
Persimmon is an extremely bitter kind of fruit and its juice is full of dark brown tanin which is used in place of Indigo for dyeing the cotton.
When the denim is dyed with this juice , it achieves dark brown color. This color tends to darken with oxidation and thus the Jeans will darken with time.

Some Japanese brands like Samurai make these kind of jeans, though in limited edition only..
Some interesting snaps of such jeans are given below :

THE DENIM FABRIC WITH KAKI-SHIBU DYEING

Evisu DD +1 Jeans project

Evisu has launched a new Denim Project called Dirty Dozen + 1 (DD+1) in association with Superfuture and the Blue in Green store in NY . 13 people are wearing a pair each of special customized jeans from Evisu – hand painted by a famous Japanese artist. The jeans shall be worn for a period of 13 months and evaluated….

I like the way Evisu spends time and energy in getting out products which will have ‘TIME APPEAL’ – ie they will be become better with time and age like OLD WINE… I would have liked to know the kind of fabric they are using in this project .. Will post when available….

Want to see how the jeans has been hand painted ? See here

Grungy Denim . A new trend for 2008?

There have been some forecasts that a new trend for Spring/Summer 2008 may be the GRUNGY DENIM..….
These Jeans basically have a patchy high contrast bleached look – the 80s punk look.
Though this washing style has not been noticed in many brands, there are some points that merit attention:
a)The current trends in denim looks the world over follow from the Premium Denim brands. These brands are basically encashing their expertise in providing a high quality fabric, washed and sanded nicely(many times hand sanded) and with some standout embellishments like Pocket designing etc. Of course the importance of FIT can never be forgotten as one of their primary strengths.
b)These trends are being followed in some measure by other manufacturers around the world – who are also trying to provide the similar jeans at a lower cost.
c)In the last 1-2 years there has been no distinctive denim look which has come in and the current washes and looks are getting somewhat jaded and there is a need for something fresh.

Thus there IS A NEED for some FRESH LOOK IN DENIMS. However, whether that will be GRUNGY LOOK or something else remains to be seen..I feel that a look similar to GRUNGY may come in provided it is MORE ELEGANT looking and does not give the PUNKISH or a CHEAP look. Designed Patchiness or GRUNGINESS (nice terminology i think !) may be considered an option for the next year.
Some Grungy Jeans from Cheap Monday ….