Wrangler leading the way for sustainable denim with ‘Dry Indigo’

American denim brand Wrangler, part of the VF Corporation, is pushing forward with its sustainable denim strategy after confirming it will be the first brand to embrace the new innovative ‘Dry Indigo’ denim fabric for a range of jeans later this year.

‘Dry Indigo’ is a new foam-dyeing process that eliminates 99 percent of the water typically used in indigo-dyeing, and a sustainable fabric that is expected to transform the denim industry.

“While we have been able to reduce 3 billion litres of water in product finishing during the past 10 years, we know that more needs to be done across the entire supply chain,” said Wrangler president, Tom Waldron in a press statement. “Foam technology reduces water consumption and pollution further upstream, helping our fabric suppliers to dramatically minimise the impacts of making denim fabric blue.”

The innovation follows Wrangler and the Walmart Foundation provided Texas Tech University with early-stage funding for the development of the foam-dying process, and Tejidos Royo, a Spanish fabric mill with a reputation for prioritising environmental performance, will be the first to integrate the foam-dye process.

Waldron added: “We invested in the development of this innovation, because we believe it can drastically change the denim industry for the better. We’re grateful to have an industry-leading partner in Royo, with whom we are taking this revolutionary step towards more sustainable denim.”

Wrangler will be the first to adopt sustainable ‘Dry Indigo’ denim

Tejidos Royo is scheduled to receive the foam-dye equipment in October and expects to begin supplying Wrangler with denim before the end of the year, which will be incorporated into the first foam-dyed denim line of jeans launching in 2019.

Jose Royo, Tejidos Royo sales director, commented: “We’re excited Wrangler is dedicating an entire line of jeans to this innovation. Our Dry Indigo process nearly erases the environmental impact of denim dyeing and represents the next generation of denim production.”

The first line of foam-dyed jeans will be Wrangler’s most recent action to minimise environmental impact as the denim brand has a number of on-going sustainability activities in the US including using sustainable cotton and reducing water usage by five billion litres by 2020.

According to Royo, applying indigo dye to raw denim with foam instead of water will eliminate the need for the tens of millions of gallons of water typically consumed by conventional wet-dye systems.

Images: courtesy of Wrangler