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  • Spring Summer 2015 Denim Trends from Paris Fashion Week

    Spring Summer 2015 Denim Trends from Paris Fashion Week

    The  Paris fashion week held recently  had some of the top notch fashion labels lining up their  cool collections including some interesting denim pieces on the ramp – most of them inspired by the 70s fashion. We take a look at some of them.

    Kenzo

    Kenzo brought out loose baggy fitting jeans , tailored denims with some prominent stitch looks and most of the time they played with double denims. If you are looking for abstract , non-traditional and loose fits, Kenzo might be the denim brand for you.

    Kenzo at Spring Summer 2015 Denim Trends from Paris Fashion Week

    Kenzo at Spring Summer 2015 Denim Trends from Paris Fashion Week

    Kenzo at Spring Summer 2015 Denim Trends from Paris Fashion Week

    Image source : nowfashion.com, jeansblog.com

    Leonard

    For her Spring-Summer 2015 collection,Yiqing Yin, design director of Leonard  used prints, embroideries, patchworks  and fancy stitching to bring out her creativity on denims.

    Denim patchwork dungarees, Murphy print

    Leonard : Denim patchwork dungarees, Murphy print

    Denim shirt, Murphy print.,Two-colour denim pants, Murphy print

    Leonard : Denim shirt, Murphy print.,Two-colour denim pants, Murphy print

    Denim pants, Mandarin print

    Leonard : Denim pants, Mandarin print

    Stella McCartney

    Stella McCartney usually has denims in her collection. For SS’15 , she uses subtle washes but with bright denim colors to create the denim dresses and overalls. The stitching and bit of patches break the monotony of the uniform blue color.

    Stella McCartney

    Stella McCartney

    Stella McCartney

    Image source:Nowfashion.com

    Infe

    It seems to be a not so well known brand but they brought out some very nice pieces of denim with ombre washes and some cool tapered fits.

    Infe SS' 15 Collection

    Infe SS' 15 Collection

    Paul & Joe

    Paul & Joe only featured only a few  denim pieces including maxi skirt and a denim short inspired by the 70s  looks.

    Jean Paul Gaultier

    And to get ones eyes wide open are the offbeat pieces from Jean Paul Gautier and one can always expect the same from him. The denims had all detailings possible – embroideries, laces, patches, sequins and much more.  Most of these pieces look suitable for music icons.

    Jean Paul Gaultier : Denimsandjeans.com

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    Images source: Style.com

    Chloe

    Chloe is a label reputed to be designed for the chic French girl and their denim pieces seemed to live up to the reputation. The pieces were crisp, using denims having great visual aspect , tailored , with nice stitch details . The denims get some real nice dressy looks in this label.

    Chloe SS' 15 Collection

    Chloe SS' 15 Collection

    Chloe SS' 15 Collection

    Chloe SS' 15 Collection

    Sonia Rykiel

    Another instance of oversizing, loose and baggy fits – this time from Sonia Rykiel– the french designer who started her label while designing her own maternity dress and slowly got famed as ‘Queen of knits’.
    Embroidery seems to be one of the  most in thing with most designers using it on denims.

    Sonia Rykiel SS' 15 Collection

    Sonia Rykiel SS' 15 Collection

    Sonia Rykiel SS' 15 Collection

  • Cone Gemini Fx Color Weft System

    Cone denim (ITG – Burlington Apparel Solutions)  is always on the forefront of innovations providing apparel solutions to brands and retailers worldwide on various fashion and lifestyle products. In their latest effort , they have tried to find a solution to address the demand for achieving color weft looks on the denim and non-denim fabrics. Colored wefts have been a strong denim trend for the last few seasons. The garment manufacturers faced some problems in this kind of product :

    • The minimums required by mills to produce these fabrics are usually not very small.
    • The color in the weft is created by the mill and the garment manufacturer cannot make any changes in the color if he wants.
    • There is a limitation on the number of colors a manufacturer can buy or a mill can supply.

    To overcome these shortcomings of traditional way of  coloring the weft –Colored weft denim fabrics from Cone whether its by way of using colored weft yarn or performing a color coat on the reverse of the fabric , Burlington developed chemicals and its application process which, the company claims, overcomes the above mentioned drawbacks..

    Cone denim Gemini Fx Men

     

    The Process

    • The fabric to be given different color wefts in the laundry are first coated with an invisible chemical on the reverse side (weft area). At this stage the denim (or non-denim) does not look any different than what it was before.
    • The fabrics are cut and sewn by manufacturer and the garments are either washed or kept raw.
    • The jeans/garments are finally taken through an overdyeing  process where special chemicals – the Hi White chemicals are used in the dyeing. The property of these chemcials (from Garmon) is such that they will show color only on the reverse side of fabric where the coat of chemical was applied.  Thus the front part , in case of denim , will still show as Indigo color and the reverse would be dyed in the color the buyer choses.
    • And the color weft fabric is created !

    I asked Gary Kernagham from Burlington whether these chemicals to used during the overdyeing process would also be supplied by them.

     

    colored weft fabrics in denim

    He said

    “..We do not Supply the Dye and other Chemicals used in the garment dye recipes provided on our website. These chemicals come from Garmon. We worked with Garmon  to  develop a range of Dyes they call HI White Dyes that work with our Gemini FX  textile Pretreatment . They have Global  distribution & technical services that our customers can utilize They have screened & tested the 10 dyes noted on our website for Color fastness & light fastness. HI Whites also have an advantage over other dyes in that they have very little staining on non pretreated fibers yarns or in the case of Gemini FX  the front of the fabric. The other chemicals found on the Recipes provided Such as Geopower PFD, Hydros TED , ECO2, Elam ECO-c , & Elam RP are also available from Garmon.  Of course  the obvious reason for  including these Garmon chemicals in our recommended procedures was to  control the usual  variables of other suppliers cemisties. By using a consistent supplier to take developments from the lab to a broad global we feel we have a much better chance to replicate these looks in laundries ranging from China to  Bangladesh to Cambodia to Vietnam  Etc.  which is consistent with our customers sourcing plans. These desizing Enzymes softeners and Ant back stain chemistry   were also  chosen due to their Enviromental friendly Low Temperature capabilities which we felt were consistent with the Low temperature and Salt free environmental advantages of HI White Dyeing of Gemini FX Fabrics .We realize that  a mill such as ours publishing garment dye recipes with such detail is not the norm but it the Objective of our Cone apparel solutions to make it as easy as possible for our customers  to implement new innovations like Gemini Fx into their global sourcing instruction no matter how globally challenging that might appear to be.

    I asked further whether these whether these colors bonded strong enough to sustain heavy washes on denim . Gary Kernagham  replied “

    “ For Both the Denim & Natural ready to dye Gemini FX fabrics The HI Whites dyes are bonded to the back side using a Cationic chemistry similar to the one used in our Affinity process fabrics thus the Bond is extremely strong and thus have great wash fastness Crocking etc .

    He further suggested that

    “ …we would recommend that  these denim garment are garment dyed first  as the recipe procedure provided  outlines and then stonewashing  & dry process is done in order to avoid the rear shade from tinting in Scraped and Stoned areas.

    The technology is new and interesting and looks quite promising for addressing a fashion related backend problem. It now needs to be seen whether it can pass the tests in bulk productions.

  • ‘Wrangler Girl’ from VF for Indian market

    [ad#for-post-top]
    Wrangler(VF Corp) India is launching a new sub-brand ‘Wrangler Girl’ .This brand shall be specificially targetted at young women.
    Wrangler has mainly been a male focused brand, though internationally they also have a brand for middle aged women – ‘Wrangler Aura’.

    Why did Wrangler feel the need to bring out this brand in India ?

    In India, there are hardly any good female denim brands. Most of the brands are focused on Males and female denim demand has been largely met by the unbranded players. I have scoured many shops to find a good female denim brand, but most of them out there seem to have made half hearted attempts.The reasons are not far to seek. The Indian females like too much of embellishments and like in other markets, the designs go out of favour very soon..Therefore the branded players find it difficult to cater properly to this segment of market..
    However,the fact that the number of working women is rising and the offices are relaxing their dressing rules to allow denims, a good market potential has generated.. These women are looking for elegant ,feminine looks (without getting flashy) andWrangler seeks to tap this potential through “Wrangler Girl’.The price range is Rs 1200 and above – upto Rs 3000..
    Wrangler seeks to target about 25% of its denim turnover from the women segement..

    Lets see if they are able to do it.. Designing has never been the strongest point with Wrangler
    Related Posts:
    Marketing Campaigns by Indian Denim Brands
    VF to push value denimwear in India

  • Marketing campaigns by Indian Denim Brands

    The premium denim brands in India are launching niche campaigns to push their them deeper into Indian psyche.

    WHY? : Obvious answer is more sales. But the need for various campaigns has also been accentuated by the fact that various International Brands like Ralph & Lauren, Diesel and GAS have become more aggresive in India . Another positive factor which is motivating the brands to invest more in campaigns is that the usage of high-end jeans in India is set to pick up with more and more offices (particularly in IT & BPO industry) allowing semi-casual wears.

    SOME CAMPAIGNS….

    WRANGLER – Go Clean – ‘Clean Skin,Clean Bikes,Clean Jeans’ : Clean jeans is obviously the ‘Clean Look denim ‘ – an effect which is achieved through mercerising the denims . But why ‘Clean Bikes’ and ‘CLean Skin’ ? Well, Wrangler has tied up with Castrol and Kaya Skin clinic to together take on the young and hep newly employed crowd of India who are very concious about their looks..Also Wrangler feels that distressed look is out and raw rinse look is in..
    LEE: The tagline for the campaign ‘HISTORY ROCKS’ AND ‘LEE SKINNY‘ is ‘Not for the masses” sends a clear message. These jeans are for upwardly mobile only who want to look apart from the crowd..
    LEVIS” ‘SAY NO TO PLASTICS’ – This campaign of Levi’s is targeted to bring the attention of the consumers on the Red Loop of Levi’s. Also, it means that they are looking at consumers with some attitude who want to be seen as proactive in environmental conciousness.. Though Levi’s claims to have a good response after the campaign, I have my doubts over the efficacy of such campaigns in India..

    Others in the line include Flying Machine’s ‘CREATIVE CULT‘ campaign . As I mentioned before, ‘Flying Machine’ has been relaunched as a high end brand with prices of Rs 1800 & up.

    IT & BPO workers have become a formidable (somewhat homogeneous) group of cash rich young people which various industries are targetting to tap in their own way. So Denim Industry was not expected to remain behind such ideas come to even our politicians(CPM) who want to unionise this group!!!!!

  • VF to push value denimwear in India through retailers

    VF Corp., through its JV VF-Arvind Brands,wants to be a major player in the value jeans segment in India through its value brands like Hero and Riders . To this end, it is aiming to tie up with the various important retailers in India including Wal-Mart .
    VF had been more focused on the premium segment of the market through its brands – Wrangler and Lee – but realised the importance of the value segment . Its main competitor – Levi Strauss – had also realised the same and sold its Signature brand through Wal-Mart (among other retailers).

    As Reported by Economic Times , the total size of the Jeans market in India is about 40-45 million pairs of denim and out of which 44 million pairs are in the value segment(Less than Rs 1000).
    Though I agree with the % of value segment , I feel that the total size of the market of Jeans in India is much bigger. Denim, which used to be mainly an export item, is currently mainly a product for domestic sale (apart from some sale to garment exporters).
    I am running out of time and will write more about this shortly.

  • VF Arvind to have e-commerce retailing

    Its good to know that more and more industries/companies are realising the power of the ‘New Media’ for marketing their products.
    Whereas, in countries like US , e-commerce is almost considered a must by most of the retailers, in India, where the power of the net has yet to be tapped, its potential is being realised slowly and slowly by the marketers..
    It gives a good feeling to know that VF Arvind is planning to go for an e-commerce site for its ,currently 7, VF brands (besides others like North Face etc which are to be added soon).

    Selling established brands through the net is probably the least problematic as the consumers are aware of the prices , fits ,styles etc .All they need to know is the style and size they like and its easy to order through the net . It is particularly true for the Indian consumer, who is notorious for ‘hand feeling’ the products a number of times before purchasing.

    However, backup operations and the service support are critical for the success of the e-commerce project.
    The experience of VF Corp would come in handy for Arvind in this regard as they have been retailing online since a long time..

    However, it would be most interesting to see the day when Arvind does retail its own brands through the net and makes them a success…

  • Gokaldas Images plans to manufacture denim

    Till now it was more of forward integration in the Indian Denim Industry with the Denim fabric players foraying into manufacture and export of Denim Apparel.

    Now its the turn of Apparel exporters to look into backward integration and the Apparel Major – Gokaldas Images(which has strong prescence in the Denim apparel exports) – plans to bringup their own Denim manufacturing unit within the next fiscal year.

    The move makes sense in the fact that they will have captive consumption inhouse for the fabric. But it needs to be remembered that it will take them some time before they can match the standards of the fabrics supplied by their current suppliers (many of which are nominated by the buyers)  .  However, it is not that this kind of backward integration is uncommon. Apparel exporters have done it before in  countries like Bangladesh,Turkey etc.

    Anyway, we wish them all the best ..

    Sandeep