More than 60 international fabric and fiber exhibitors again gathered at Basketball City in New York last week to show their spring 2020 collections at the Kingpins show, which also featured seminars, trend exhibits and various other attractions to reflect how dynamic the denim community is today.
Productwise, two descriptions continue to dominate the industry: vintage-look and sustainable. The former was shown by Blue Diamond, the denim division of Adriano Goldschmied’s House of Gold. Goldschmied noted that “sustainability is a big thing today” that he is focusing on the topic “in areas where people aren’t working so hard,” including the new Wiser Wash finishing that uses just half a glass of water to treat the fabric. He also showed modern knits across the aisle at In The Loop x Congling.
Likewise, Kara Nicholas, VP of design and marketing at Cone Denim noted, “The first question you here from anyone who comes into the booth is ‘Is that sustainable?’” Cone too is offering wide range of vintage-look denims – named Legends – that look rigid but are in fact made with modern fibers and stretch. Cone is also employing post-consumer recycled fibers and in some cases, dyeing with natural indigo.
At Mexico-based Global Denim, PFD denims are important as the market shifts into color and it has recently purchased a new machine that will allow it to use more recycled materials for its Ecoloop collection of denim.
Italy’s Candiani (aka “The Greenest Mill in the Blue World”) was mostly pushing its Relast collection that’s sustainable and divided into four categories: K-Seal (which uses 100% indigo dye and vegetal treatments), Kn-Cotton (a dyestuff that allows for earth colors), Kn-Blue (a 100% sulfur dye) and K-Navy (100% indigo dye that allows for a deep, deep blue).
Soorty too is using responsible materials, including Tencel for its Travel Lite group of lightweight fabrics. It also has six new shades of blue for the season, ranging from a dark indigo to a light one.
And Deyao of China also showed a new lightweight category, it’s (B)air Denim which is a 7.5 oz that feels superlight.
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