Natural, Sustainable Stretch Denim Jeans Compost In Just Six Months
Image via Candiani
Denim is one of the most environmentally stressful fabrics to produce, yet jeans are such a firm staple in many of our wardrobes. Although certain styles may come in and out of fashion, the fact is that denim plays a part in all of them.
Rather than trying to eradicate this garment totally, Italian firm Candiani is trying its hand at creating an iteration of denim that, apart from not taking such a huge toll on the environment, is also fully compostable at its end of life.
Named ‘Coreva’, the fabric was created by fourth-generation business owner Alberto Candiani. This stretch denim takes just six months to degrade, which is much more favorable when compared to conventional denim, which takes “hundreds of years” to do so, according to sustainability manager Danielle Arzaga.
Natural rubber is used in the fabric, instead of the synthetic and petrochemical-based materials found in regular stretch denim. Besides being able to decompose faster and better, natural rubber also means that less toxic chemicals and microplastics are released into the environment in the process.
Image via Candiani
Although lab tests showed that the jeans would degrade, the design team tested it out for themselves by burying pairs of new Coreva jeans into the landscape overlooking the Ticino River. Half a year later, they were hard to dig up again—most of the fabric had already degraded to earth.
This, however, “doesn’t mean your jeans will fall off if you get rained on,” Candiani reassures.
“They are extremely durable, but at the end of their life, yes, you could send them back to us and we recycle them, or you could fertilize your veggies with them. We have even fertilized cotton fields with our scraps,” he explains to Good Good Good.
Apart from the fabric boasting so many environmentally-friendly qualities, the company’s processes are also in line with this principle. Candiani uses 75% less water and 65% less chemicals than it did previously, also partly thanks to the factory being located in a protected area in the Lombardi region.
Image via Candiani
All the waste fibers are also collected to be reused in the recycled denim line, according to the company, and each pair of jeans takes between 5.3 to 7.9 gallons of water to produce, rather than the approximate 1,800 required for standard denim.
Unfortunately, this does mean that the fabric costs more than its traditional counterpart: Candiani states that it costs about six dollars per yard, which is around double the price.
Image via Candiani
However, this is down to the fact that labor is local, not outsourced from textile production facilities in Bangladesh or China, for example. Bringing cotton sourcing closer to home, rather than sourcing from countries like India or Africa, might help—and this is the next step for Candiani.
Candiani supplies sustainable denim to many well-known brands such as Levi’s, J.Crew, and Stella McCartney.
[via Good Good Good, images via Candiani]
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