There are things and terms you will without a doubt come across when entering the raw denim world. Things like sanforized, unsanforized, whiskers, Atari, yarn dye and shit there are lots of it. What’s all the fuss about? Why do denim-addicts and denim-amateurs alike pay extra special attention to it? Let’s start off the easy way.
HONEY I SHRUNK THE JEANS:
One distinction that must be made clear as well is about the sanforized denim. This will involve the jeans’ shrinkage and how far would they fade. Well, santorization is a pre-shrinking fabric. Don’t frown, the rule is simple; if it’s sanforized, there are possibility for the fabric to shrink after your wash around 1% since the fabric was through the pre-shrinking process. But if your denim says it’s un-sanforized, it will shrink between 7 and 10% after the first wash, and continue to shrink slightly up to the third wash.
“Developed in the late 1920s by the American chemist Sanford Cluett and patented by Sanforize Co. in 1928, the process was reportedly first used by Erwin Mills in 1936 to make denim for overalls marketed under JC Penney's Big Mac label. Lee jeans were made from Sanforized fabric soon afterwards, but Levi's jeans remained shrink-to-fit for another three decades until the 1960s.”
DYING: SWEAT & BLOOD PROCESS
You might have been questioned how did they do and how many types of dying are there. Started off with the Pigment dyes, for example, are dyes that do not easily bond with yarn fibres and therefore need to be held to the fabric by resins. Meaning it easier for fading and aging. Similarity to Mercerization which keeps the dye on the surface of the fabric making it a sweet candy for you fade lover.
“Denim is a yarn dyed fabric, meaning that the individual yarns are dyed before they are woven into fabric. The other method of dying, garment dying, is performed on finished garments. So if the pocket linings and labels of a piece of clothing are the same colour as the fabric, chances are it has been garment dyed.”
For the yarn dyes, there are three main processes in the industry;
1. Rope dying, believed to be the best possible indigo dyeing method for yarn. The un-dyed yarns prepared are twisted together and dyed as a single unit. We called the single unit a rope. The rope will run through a long machine as the it’s dipped into indigo and pulled out to oxidize. The dip could happen from 5 to eight times depends on how dark you would love the yarn to be.
2. Slasher dyeing. This one combines dyeing and sizing into a single process. Warp or vertical yarns are repeatedly passed in warp beam form through several baths of indigo dye before being sized and wound for weaving. By the way, this one is said to be lower in quality than the rope dying if you ask us. The dye does not penetrate well and the color tends to be uneven. However, recent mechanical improvements have helped make it a more viable option.
3. Loop dying. This one is similar to rope dying, except that instead of six or eight baths there is only one. So if you want the deeper finished denim, just repeat the process and there you go.
More we are telling you are
- Ring dying. The one that allows only the outer ring of the fibres dyed leaving its core white.
- Hank dying, where yarns are loosely arranged in bundles, or hanks, that are then hung over a rung and immersed in a dye bath. The bundles will repeatedly run, getting the yarn dipped and then left to oxidize between each dip. The outcome is a natural tarnishing. This way the yarn remains softer feel.
You might have been wondering how could your jeans after fade expose grey or yellow cast. It would happen that way if your jeans are added sulphur dye before its indigo dye. So that was how you get the yellowish grayish vintage-look.
Yet, there is still another process. The denim producer sometime applies color after the customary indigo dye to create look variety; such as dirty denim.
BABY, IT’S PAINFUL INSIDE
We’re talking about “Laundry” yes. The laundry for denim exists to change the cast and handfeel of the denim, also to re-create the naturally occurring wear patterns that occur wherever the denim is creased or rubbed. Those natural worn look are fades occurred on several areas; thigh and crotch (called whiskers), ankles (stacks), and the back of knees (honeycombs).
Stick and stones may break bones, well, denim too. The most straightforward methods involve either stone or sand to create abrasion. Laundry techniques can be varied. Started from Sandblasting where sand is literally fired at high pressure onto the fabric. A slightly more high-tech version of this is micro-sanding, where fabric is pulled over a series of abrasive or chemically-coated rollers, which creates a soft, sueded hand to the fabric.
Other well-known washing are;
- Stone washing. There they throw a 20-yard roll of fabric and pumice stones together into a 250-pound washing machine. Let it rotate for a while. The longer the rotation, the lighter in color you got. Simple. The denim is then rinsed, softened, and tumble dried.
- Enzyme wash. Here, naturally occurring enzymes are used to eat away at the cellulose in cotton. This is how indigo get faded away.
- River washing. Say this washing combines both enzyme and stone washing together in two-stage. The outcome is a dramatic vintage-effect you wouldn’t imagine.
- Acid Wash. You are bound to hear the term somewhere if you are from Eighties’. The process is to soak the porous pumice stones in chlorine and then stone washing as normal. The outcome is a heavily super contrasted finish with unique patterns you might like or feel like crying now.
IT’S NOT A VIDEOGAME
No, not the video game we’re talking about. Here are terms you will without a doubt come across when entering the raw denim world.
1. Atari – It means fades. All the fades occurred with age on your pair are Atari. Fades are called differently depends on its area; thigh and crotch (called whiskers), ankles (stacks), and the back of knees (honeycombs).
2. Iro-ochi – This means the fading of indigo dye in denim. The term specifically relates to fading in exposed areas and not across the entire garment.
3. Tate-ochi – The term means occurrences of ‘Iro-ochi’(areas of fading, see above) forming in vertical lines in vintage denim. As the thread width is not uniform in vintage denim, the color tends to fade the most where the thread is the thickest. This creates a white, or severely faded, line of up to several centimetres along a single vertical indigo thread.
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