Like to have a premium denim shirt in your own size stitched and sent to you for Free ? 
Yeah?  Read on for more details …

Oswal Denim , a part of the Nahar group of Industries, is bringing out a small contest where the participants have to answer only 10 questions related to the general denim industry and Nahar group etc and  25 participants who will  have the most correct answers, will be sent one of the following denim shirts in their address , Free  . The interesting  part of the contest  is that the shirt will be stitched in their size , which they will be able to select from the questionnaire page , and sent to the winners by courier.

We are  happy to be bringing out this contest from Oswal Denim to our readers  and the details on the shirt and contest follow :

Date of starting : The contest starts immediately from today.
Ending date : The contest will end by 1st September. Early birds will , of course , have an advantage over those are late to fill the form ! 
Eligbility : Professionals working in the denim supply chain including those in washing houses, garment manufacturing , apparel retailing, buying houses, denim r&d labs, producers, distributors , brands, stores etc are eligible to participate. This list is not exhaustive.
Questionnaire : Please visit this page to complete the questionnaire .
Shirts : Shirts are manufactured  from fabrics made by Oswal denim . The company mentions that many of these fabrics are appreciated and used by  a number of reputed international brands/retailers  including Armani Exchange, CK, Espirit etc.

Shirt 1 : FilaStripe

With horizontal stripes running through the fabric with a multiple play of indigo yarns, this is a 4.5oz shirt made with  fine counts in 100% cotton. The shirt goes in half or full sleeves option. Here are different images of this Filastripe shirt

Shirt-2 : Vintage – S

In 5oz 100% cotton , this shirt  has a lot of vintage character with slubs  in both warp and weft flowing at irregular intervals to give that natural linen  look , made more prominent by the choice of an grey cast indigo dyeing.

Shirt 3 : Slate

Slate is a cool light grey warp dyed shirt in light fabric of about 4.5oz and constructed with fine yarns with a slubby character. Pair it with dark  indigo or black jeans and you are ready for a party!. Of course, it would complement other bottoms too – being a light colored grey denim – is sutiable for  semi formal wears too…

Shirt 4 : Leopard

As per the company

“This 4.5oz shirt in 100% cotton fine yarn counts has been printed in a paisley design with a combination of light grey/black/brown colors to bring out a very unique character and to go with every kind of jeans without giving that double denim look. This is one of the hundreds of print designs that we do on denim.”

Shirt 5 : V-Band

With blue vertical bands on this 4.5oz (again) 100% cotton shirt, as per the company, “..it is difficult to find whether the fabric is yarn dyed or printed.
With further wash downs, bolder character of the stripes is revealed for those who enjoy all the attention ..”

As mentioned above, participants need to enter the contest by answering questions on this page . The company shall select 25 most correct entries to declare the winners of one of the above shirts each !

The Denim Studio, which officially  opened yesterday at   Selfridges on Oxford Street – London, is the first and the largest space of its kind in the world at over 26,000sqft. Bigger than two Olympic swimming pools, or over half the size of a football pitch, the space has been conceived to address the specific needs of women looking for the perfect denim fit. Its launch also proves that the denim market is set to bounce back for good. Even the appetite for niche designer denim, with pairs of jeans averaging £220each, is proving insatiable.

The healthy increase in sales in the denim category at Selfridges over the past four years, of more than 50%, prompted the store to launch an expansion plan two years ago, which led to the opening of the Denim Studio today – an investment well in excess of £6M. It is now five times bigger than the previous denim department, with double the number of brands. Selfridges forecasts that it will now be selling at nearly two pairs of jeans every minute during its daily trading hours.

With over 11,000 pairs of jeans available, the Denim Studio offers the largest selection of denim styles under one roof with services created specifically to make the search for the perfect jeans the easiest and most pleasurable experience ever. The Denim Studio will be the only place in the world to choose jeans from as little as £11 and as much as £11,000, as well as casual and sportswear collections to best compliment a denim look. Every brand housed in the Denim Studio has been asked by Selfridges to create world exclusive pieces to celebrate the opening of this pioneering new retail environment.

As well as the extraordinary product selection to include J Brand, Hudson Jeans, Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham Denim, the denim stalwarts such as Lee and Levi’s and emerging labels such as 3×1, Black Denim and Kill City, the Denim Studio will introduce the most dynamic specialist denim services ever. From a denim self-service checkout for customers in a hurry, to the Fit Studio, which consists of 18 ‘total vision’ fitting rooms and the first denim dedicated Personal Shopping suite with stylists on hand for expert advice, the services extend also to a Denim Tailor, offering alterations done within a guaranteed two-hour period.

The Denim Studio also has an advanced digital service called the Jeanius Bar, where customers are able to consult relevant style information, expert advice and thousands of visuals available from a giant touch-screen electronic tablet. The Jeanius Bar doubles up as a social space where women are encouraged to share, interact and enjoy the shopping experience with other women, within and outside the store.

The Denim Studio is above all a testimony of the absolute resilience and timelessness of what is widely considered the most iconic and democratic style in the history of fashion.

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Isko , the company with the largest denim capacity worldwide  , recently held a washing seminar at Istanbul . As a part of its knowledge sharing drive , Isko launches a number of washing seminars around the globe inviting different players in the denim supply chain from chemical suppliers, brands, retailers and many others.  I  too attended the seminar at Istanbul having been kindly invited by the Isko team .  It was actually a very enjoyable experience to interact with the charged Isko team who were on a high on a great performance in 2012 despite global slowdown and also with  a number of denim people  from different parts of the world including brands like Topshop, Pull and Bear, Inditex, Mih Jeans, Les Temps des Crises , Chasin Score Mac Jeans and many others. It was a pleasure to see competing brands coming together to participate in an educative seminar .

The first part of the seminar was held at DenimPA  – in a vintage aesthetics showroom for denim . Marco Lucietti – the marketing and brand director of Isko laid out the tone for the day describing Isko’s  the need for organizing such interactive seminars where knowledge on denim is shared across value chain. Marco also laid out the objective of Isko ISKO to be recognized as the BEST INGREDIENT BRAND for denim fabrics globally, like ingredient brand Lycra in fibres and Intel for computers.

Sessions were taken by top  Isko R&D executives like Hamit Yenici and Moreno De Angelis to educate the participants about the various intricacies of stretch fabrics , on Fit and Design by Umberto Brochetto (Creative Room ) etc. Besides Nuria Estape from Clariant made some interesting presentations on Eco Processes of denim dyeing. The team showed some interesting new developments in fabrics and finishing. Particularly interesting to note was the new technology of  a new replacement of sandblasting method – the Ice Blasting – which involves blasting the garment with Dry Ice (CO2)  instead of sand. Its a very new concept  and only a few laundries in the world can handle it.  The participants were also keen to know about Iskoteca – the library with over 20,000 garments that Isko has in Italy and which enables customers to go through a vast depository of denim garments in different washes from around the world .

The afternoon session was the most interesting where the participants were taken to  a unit of  Baykanlar  – a large garment unit from Turkey manufacturing about 6 million garments/year and supplying to major denim brands and retailers in EU . Besides an introduction of the unit, it was cool to see a catwalk with  Baykanlar Collection made from Isko fabrics. Some of the interesting fabrics – like Reform (from Isko) – could be seen on young women and it was particularly noticeable  that the women did look slimmer in this particular fabric  – ratifying a claim often made by Isko. Of course, this fabric has been used by a number of top brands for this particular functionality. Loomfx was an interesting fabric for men which retained the aesthetics of a raw denim look inspite of being a comfort stretch fabric.

The visit to all the operations of Baykanlar unit was educative and interesting – specially the dry processing part.  However, we were in for a surprise when suddenly we were brought  into a room with dry processing machines and were divided into two groups – the DENIM KITCHEN . Each of the groups was shown a WASHED Jeans and we had to replicate the looks on a raw jeans . Each one of us was given a  raw jean on which we applied resin , created whiskers, applied PP spray  and then hand sanded the jeans .. It was fun and created competitive spirit among the participants to bring out the best jeans !!

I should not forget to mention the great party at the end of the day – where we had fun with Isko, Baykanlar teams . However,  the biggest surprise of the day was when we were presented with SAME JEANS that we had created with our own hands. It was just  a plain good feeling to look at your own creation . And of course, my jeans were probably washed the best (or at least I think so ) .I am sure the quality of washing of my  jeans entitles me to a  few  job offers from Denim Washing Plants !! .

One question, though ,  still  remains to be answered. No one asked the participants their waist size and length and still got perfect size jeans(at least myself )  on which they had worked..Don’t know how Isko/Baykanlar team managed this . Need to ask them the secret sometime ..

Thanks to Isko team for organizing a great Seminar ….

We have created some videos from the show which can be seen below (only those who view this article online can see it ).

As we previously mentioned, the “Improved Denim Manufacturing Seminar “ is taking place at Mexico on 13th and 14th November. Here is the final schedule of this seminar. Those who wish to still register for the same may do so here