Month: April 2016

Jeans are the backbone of JACK & JONES; with millions made every year we use a lot of denim.  Denim is mainly made from cotton; a fragile and fluffy staple fibre grown on a plant that is turned into a sturdy hardwearing textile. 

Cotton is by far the most important raw material for jeans production.  The road from fuzzy to fashion is long and the cotton goes through numerous steps before it is ready to be used for clothes.  Each of the steps below is equally important to make denim. 

All Jeans Come from a Field

Being a natural fibre, cotton grows in bolls on plants in vast fields.  Cotton farming requires warmth, sun, and moderate rainfall.  These requirements are perfectly met in places like India, Egypt, and the southern states of the US. 

The cotton bolls are picked with a machine that removes the crop without damaging the plant.  Once picked and collected, the cotton goes through the ginning process.  Sharp discs split the seeds from the fibres and the cleaned cotton is then packed in bales and shipped off for further processing. 

From White Fibres to Blue Yarn

At the denim mill, cotton from different countries with various features, such as strength or fibre length, is mixed to make sure the final product has the desired qualities that the designers are looking for.  The cotton bales are put through a cotton opening machine which pulls and elongates the fibres. 

Before the fibres start taking shape, they go through a process called carding.  Tiny teeth on a big rolling cylinder catch one fibre each, aligning each fibre and cleaning it once more.  Then, in the spinning phase, the ropes of cotton, called slivers, are stretched, twisted, and spun to make the fibres stronger and ultimately form yarn.  For stretch denim, elastane and sometimes polyester are mixed with the cotton in the spinning step. 

Now, the cotton yarn is ready for the warping phase where an immense web of yarns is rolled onto enormous balls. 

The yarn is then dipped in vats of indigo dye to give it the signature blue colour.  Once the yarn leaves the vat, it goes through the so-called oxidation process; it turns from a greenish colour to its original indigo blue.  The higher the number of dips the darker the colour of the denim will be. 

Next step is weaving. 

Now it Begins to Look Like Denim

Advanced technology and automated looms have replaced mechanical looms and made weaving easier and faster, and has reduced defects created in the process.  Most of our denim is made on these “wide looms,” we also do made selvedge denim, which is made on vintage-style narrow shuttle looms. 

The vertical, indigo dyed blue yarn, known as the warp, is woven together with the horizontal, white yarn, which is called the weft.  To make the denim stronger and stiffer, and to make the yarn able to withstand the stress of weaving, it is dipped in a starchy substance. 

Once woven, the denim is pre-shrunk, through the sanforization process, to make sure that it does not shrink later on once the garment is washed.  To give the denim a smoother texture and a more visible weave, it passes over a controlled flame at the speed of 80/100 metres per minute, burning the surface fibres.  This is known as singeing. 

After thorough quality control, the finished fabric is marked and graded and put on large rolls.  Now the denim is ready to go from automated machines to the creative hands at the sewing phase. 

Making a pair of JACK & JONES jeans is no simple feat.  While weaving denim is an almost completely automated process, the stitching step is where craftsmanship really starts to matter. 

Stitching a pair of jeans involves a lot of teamwork; it requires many hands, eyes, and creative minds working together.  The jeans pass through various stitching stations and the job carried out at each station is equally crucial for the final result; a handcrafted pair of JACK & JONES jeans that meet our first-rate standards. 

The Stitching Process Starts On a Computer

Okay, didn’t you just say that stitching is a manual process?  That’s right, but before the seamstresses can start churning out awesome jeans, they need to know which pieces go together. 

That’s where the pattern maker enters the stage.  Not only will the pattern help seamstresses distinguish the fronts from the backs, it also determines the fit of the jeans. 

Once a pattern is developed and approved by our Jeans Intelligence Studio, it will be printed on paper and placed on as many as sixty layers of fabric.  Then, the pattern cutter uses a jigsaw-like cutting machine to cut out all the pieces.  There is absolutely no room for errors – a wrong turn with the saw can’t be undone. 

15 Minutes of Needle Work

Once the denim is cut into pieces of legs, pockets, waistbands and so on, the sewing can begin.  A generic pair of five-pocket jeans consists of around 20 individual pieces of fabric and it takes around 15 minutes to sew them together.  If the jeans have special design features such as extra pockets, there will be more pieces and the sewing will take a little longer. 

Most of the stitching is done manually on sewing machines in assembly lines.  Despite being optimised by technology, the stitching process is rooted in dexterity; it requires great hand and eye coordination, but you better believe that our seamstresses know what they are doing – and that they’re fast at it! 

When the jeans are stitched, they go through thorough controls to make sure that they meet our quality standards.  The stitched raw jeans are packed according to style and are sent off to the laundries to be washed and treated. 

Facts! 

– On average, 1.35 metres of wide loom fabric are used for one pair of jeans. 

– 240 metres of thread are used for a pair of five-pocket jeans. 

– While it takes 15 minutes to stitch a pair of five-pocket jeans, the average time needed for a pair of jeans to go from the cutting stage to its final washed look is 1.5 hours. 

This last stage; washing and laundry treatments is our favourite part! 

Denim only really comes to life when it’s faded.  This happens naturally when you wear it.  However, getting a good fade can take years.  Luckily, modern treatment processes allow us to speed up the process, and with innovative technologies and old-fashioned craftsmanship we have become experts in recreating authentically worn in jeans. 

How we make JACK & JONES jeans - washing and treatment - the laundry room

Denim’s Character Really Shines Through In the Laundry Room. The natural fade can be replicated in many ways.  Depending on the desired outcome, we work with a number of different treatments.  Each pair can go through as many as 16 different manual operations. 

Overall Fading: Stonewashing and Ozone Treatment

For an even all-over fade, we use both traditional washing, either with or without the small pumice stones, and ozone treatment.  The latter is an innovative laundry method in which a gas, in this case ozone, replaces water to lighten the colour of the denim.  Ozone laundering, which is a cornerstone of our Low Impact Denim initiative, helps us reach our goals of reducing water and energy consumption by at least 40% and 30%, respectively, in the treatment process. 

As you’ve probably realised by now, we go a long way to recreate the naturally worn in look in our jeans.  We even replicate the 3D-effect of the natural creases; a waxy fluid substance called resin is applied to the jeans to keep creases formed on mannequins in place.  The jeans go through a large, industrial oven at 160°C which hardens the resin. 

The Final Touch

Even though the processes may be the same, no two jeans will look alike in the end; that’s the beauty of it all!  The jeans have been given their signature looks and the only things missing are the very last touch.  This is added during the trimming and finishing step where the remaining patches, buttons, and hangtags are attached and the jeans are packed in boxes. 

Making high-quality jeans is a craft; something that takes years and skills to master.  For decades, Italy has been one of the world’s leading denim nations.  Especially when it comes to weaving and treatment technologies, the Italians are always one step ahead.  That’s why we’re so proud to offer an extensive selection of Italian JACK & JONES jeans that are hand-finished at some of the best Italian laundries. 

The making of all Italian JACK & JONES jeans is done with a class leading combination of artisanal skills and advanced technologies.  What we get is a superior product that quality wise is on par with brands that charge way more than we do.  That’s what you get when you combine our motto of “craftsmanship and dedication” with a value-for-money principle. 

Do you know how many processes it takes to make that pair of jeans you're wearing?  Read about the JACK & JONES Jeans Journey here:

Rethinking Denim Comfort with Indigo Knit

Who says you can’t combine the authentic look of denim with the smooth comfort of sweatwear?  Not us! 

As much as we love denim, we’ll be the first to admit that it’s not always the most comfortable of fabrics.  In all fairness, denim was designed to be tough and hardwearing.  It was made for workwear and comfort wasn’t the number one priority. 

Today, most of the jeans we make don’t see much hard work, and being comfortable has become a higher priority.  Sure, if you wear your jeans loose enough, any kind of denim can be comfortable.  But these days, most of us prefer a leaner and more figure-hugging cut. 

Still, while we want more comfort, we’ve also come to love the rugged look of our denim jeans and we wouldn’t really trade it for anything else.  See the dilemma?  If you’re reading this, chances are you’re experiencing it first-hand on a daily basis. 

Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum. 

Think about sportswear, sweatwear and other garments made for leisure and comfort.  Good. 

Now narrow it down to a pair of classic sweatpants; you know, the chunky light grey ones that are soft and comfortable, but not really suited for anything other than wearing around the house on a lazy Sunday or at the gym.