Adding strength, stretch and style to an old standard
By Glenna Musante
With the help of ongoing industry R&D, a new generation of denim is being introduced to consumers that combines the traditional durability expected from the world’s favorite cloth with unexpected new capabilities. The result is a denim more suitable than in the past for outdoor wear that looks and feels like traditional denim, but practically has super powers.
And, like its ancestor fabric invented in the late-1800s, today’s new denim has a big job to do.
As the legend goes, denim jeans were invented by Levi Strauss around 1849, during the California gold rush, to give miners sturdy pants and jackets to wear that could withstand 24/7 wear and tear in rugged, mountainous terrain. In fact, the first denim blue jeans were introduced much later by Strauss, around 1890, but with the same goal in mind of providing pioneers, miners, lumber jacks, cowboys, railroad workers and other laborers carving out the U.S. West with durable outerwear that wouldn’t tear easily – shoot outs and high stakes poker knifings notwithstanding.
Strauss’s first iteration was a tough canvas-like, cotton cloth for pants and jackets designed for heavy labor. This denim was also rough and caused chafing, which caused some complaining from customers. So Strauss added a twilled cotton from France called Serge de Nimes for softness to the blend, which became known as denim.
Then as now, durability, ruggedness and toughness are necessary requirements for a good pair of denim pants, whether worn for work, play or any number of activities in the great outdoors. But comfort has always been important, too. And as with Strauss’s customers who chafed at rough denim, today’s shoppers also want comfort plus a new and complex constellation of other performance capabilities including cool hand, stretch recovery, form fit, flexibility, breathability, style and water resistance, all without sacrificing the durability, look or hand of classic cotton denim.
INVISTA is one company pioneering this field of development, with products such as COOLMAX, dualFX and a new line of CORDURA-denim blends. Meanwhile, other companies also are coming to the forefront with denim blends that combine a traditional look with new capabilities.
Give me a ‘J’
Michael Morrell, president and partner, Olah, Inc., lives at the forefront of denim R&D and its consumer applications, and he reported that one innovation standing out is a new yarn called J-fiber. Currently being tested in denim products, he said J-fiber provides exceptional flexibility, adaptability, resilience and stretch recovery, without sacrificing the look and hand of denim or its strength.
J-fiber is core spun and wrapped with cotton. As a result, he said, the finished fiber has much the same hand as denim. However, it has much more give and stretch recovery than standard denim, which can bag at knees, hips or other stress points. And because it is wrapped in cotton, Morrell added, “the look is that of a natural denim.” He stressed that J-fiber is typically blended with another fiber, mostly cotton, but can also be blended with polyester.
The outdoor applications for J-fiber include pants for hiking that do not bind when climbing or lose shape with steady wear in rugged settings. Other benefits include improved ease of movement in tough terrain and greater flexibility than traditional denim or even denim/Lycra blends.
“This is a relatively new fiber now only coming into the market. It is extruded in Japan, used on some other products, but only now is coming into jeans and denims,” said Morrell, who added that the fiber is also very soft.
“This fiber really puts the stretch into the product, giving you much more mobility,” he continued, because the stretch curve of J-fiber is straight. With Lycra, which has a curved stretch line, he explained, “if you stretch it an inch, it requires an inch of force. If you stretch it five inches, it requires more.” With J-fiber, the stretch force needed is even, due to its straight stretch line, making it more adaptable to shape and movement. J-fiber, he said, doesn’t crease or bind.
Morrell said another yarn that is catching the eye of the industry is dualFX, an INVISTA product. DualFX builds on a polyester-based fiber called T-400, which he said is strong but doesn’t have a huge amount of stretch. Added to Lycra, however, dualFX “is elastic, strong, more durable, has greater side-to-side stretch recovery, and overall better stretch, growth, recovery. It doesn›t bag in the knee, seats, hip and all the other areas that can bag out without recovery in regular denim. It adds fit and function to women’s pants.”
INVISTA’s COOLMAX product also is being woven into denim to provide a cool hand on the inside of denim against the skin, said Morrell, offering an antidote to the inevitable heat that can result from a strenuous hike in the summer.
Odor Eating Pant Liners
Imagine, if you will, a pair of hunting pants or hiking jeans that fit well, are comfortable and are lined with a thin internal layer of activated carbon fabric that absorbs body odor. Though not on the market yet, denim and canvas pants with this sort of lining are in development through a company called First Line Technology, which is based in Chantilly, Va.
First Line Technology currently sells decontamination filters, wipes, gloves, gas mask inserts and other products made from this new textile to the U.S. Military and emergency responders under the brand name, FiberTect. It is a drapable, nonwoven fabric that absorbs and retains odors.
For hunters, hikers, campers, fishermen and others spending time in the wild, the primary benefit would be the material’s ability to absorb body odor. For hunters and wildlife watchers, this reduces the chance of being detected by prey. For campers and hikers it could reduce the chance of being preyed upon by animals hungry, on the hunt and attracted to human smell. And for those outdoors people hanging out together for extended periods in situations where showering isn’t exactly easy, it could simply make life a bit more pleasant. According to Amit Kapoor, founder of the company, a jeans or canvas pant lining (or lining for a hunting jacket) is in development now. The trick, he said, will be finding a way to attach the activated carbon material lining without degrading the durability factor of the pants or jacket.
For more info check out www.firstlinetech.com.
CORDURA 2.0
CORDURA, another division of INVISTA, has been at the forefront of the development of denim that is strong but also stylish and drapable, addressing the fact that even in the great outdoors, consumers care about fit and look.
This past May in Barcelona, Spain, at the Premiere Vision Show, INVISTA’s CORDURA brand, which traditionally was known for adding strength to heavy-use canvas products such as tents, packs and military products, introduced a new line of durable brand fabric products made in collaboration with Artistic Milliners, a leader in global denim technologies. This includes fabrics for denim outdoor wear with technical performance features such as thermoregulation, moisture management, water repellency and enhanced tear resistance.
According to INVISTA, CORDURA Denim fabric helps jeans last longer than traditional 100 percent cotton denim, but is also designed for style and drapability. The fiber is built on a blend of cotton with INVISTA’s T420 nylon 6.6 fiber. The result is a denim that looks and feels like cotton denim, but with added abrasion resistance and toughness.
“Today’s lifestyles trends are expanding the boundaries for denims,” said Cindy McNaull, global CORDURA brand marketing director. “We look forward to a new, innovative generation of durable performance denims for apparel, including thermoregulation and waterproof denim solutions for hiking, skiing, rock climbing, snowboarding, motorcycling and urban cycling.”
The new fabric innovations from Artistic Milliners include durable denims with thermoregulation functionality for warmth or cooling properties and are engineered to move moisture away in hot climates, plus have hollow core fibers to help provide insulation for added comfort on colder days.
Altogether, these and other new innovations are bringing denim – which had lagged behind to some extent as an outdoor fabric – into the forefront as a contender for a larger share of the outdoor wear market. With today’s worldwide denim market valued in the billions of dollars, innovation here has the potential to spark major trends.
CORDURA Denim’s from Artistic Milliners
• AMS-1110E – durable 10oz CORDURA Denim fabric / COOLMAX ALL SEASON fabric
• AMS-1110B – durable 10oz CORDURA Denim fabric / THERMOLITE fabric
• AMS-1110B – durable 10oz (321 gm2) stretch CORDURA Denim fabric incorporating hollow core fibers for insulation comfort
• AMS-1110E – durable 10oz (321 gm2) stretch CORDURA Denim fabric incorporating specially engineered fibers that help move moisture away as well as hollow core fibers to help provide insulation
• Waterproof CORDURA Denim fabric incorporating three-ply laminate technology
• CORDURA Denim fabrics incorporating para-aramid fibers for enhanced fabric tear strength in applications such as motorcycle apparel.
In Search of Style and Substance
One of the major hurdles has been adding comfort without sacrificing strength and durability. Technologies developed to make denim jeans soft include repeated washing (hence the term washed jeans), or pounding with rocks, to sandblasting (a process that can be hazardous to the health of textile workers) to laser treatments from companies such as Jeanologia.
But those technologies have been geared to some extent more toward style than the development of a fiber suitable for all forms of current rugged outdoor wear.
