Whether you care about the production quality of your clothing or want to know how the garment you wear every day is produced, we are here to explain how jeans are made. Our Hockerty jeans are sustainable, made from high quality denim fabrics and we will slowly be posting more content to introduce you to the fascinating world of jeans.
Read also:
- What are jeans made of
- How jeans should fit
- Sustainability of our jeans
- How often should you wash jeans
Read about the process that your favourite jeans undergo to get from cotton fields to your wardrobe.
Creating a yarn for jeans
The first step to create the denim fabric is to create the yarn. The traditional denim yarn is made of cotton, a natural fiber from the cotton plant growing on cotton fields. Nowadays, different fibers are added to the cotton fabric to get some additional abilities. One example is elastane, that will make your jeans stretchier and more comfortable. The fibers are then twisted together to make the yarn strong and the jeans durable.
The way in which the yarn is produced, type of cotton used, the thickness and the shape of the yarn influences the look and feel of the fabric and therefore the final look of your jeans.
Cotton yarns produced from white cotton plant
Dyeing the jeans yarn
Once we have the white cotton yarn, the next step is to dye it. The reason why your pair of jeans is so unique is this process!
To achieve the traditional blue jeans color, we dye the yarn in Indigo color. The process has two phases: the yarns are being submerged in baths of indigo color and then taken out, and this is repeated many times until the yarn saturates an intense blue shade. Due to this complicated dyeing process and the tense yarn twist, it is difficult to dye the center of the yarn, and so this will always remain white. No worries about that, though! Thanks to this small ‘imperfection’, the jeans producers have a chance to create various amazing looks on your jeans.
Dyed cotton yarns
Creating jeans fabric
To create a fabric, the dyed cotton yarns are weaved together in cross angle. This ensures the durability and proper jeans stiffness and makes jeans more resistant to damage. The way these yarns cross each other creates distinctive diagonal lines on jeans.
Once the fabric is ready, it must pass various tests and processes to ensure dimensional stability and enhance its appearance and feel.
Disctinctive diagonal lines on jeans
Tailoring jeans
Depending on the fit, fabric and style, our tailors create a unique pattern made to fit your body. All pieces are cut and then sewn together.
Once your jeans are made, they are very stiff due to all the treatments to the yarn and fabric and have a dark blue color. To achieve the wished blue shade and to make the jeans softer, they have to undergo additional finishing processes.
Jeans pattern
Adding jeans finishes
There are two main reasons why color of denim jeans fade naturally. Firstly, the fabric is made with cotton yarns that are additionally dyed with indigo, and secondly, the color does not get to the white center of the yarn. These characteristics bring out the beauty of jeans, as it allows them to become unique and versatile.
Through different techniques combining abrasion and chemical transformation, the plain pair of jeans can feature different colors, effects and looks.
Whiskers
The way you move and sit will create natural creases on the pants you are wearing. Naturally jeans will fade in those areas with regular use. Whiskers can also be created by different industrial processes to create shapes and fade such as hand scraping with sandpaper, using templates or laser machines.
Adding whiskers to jeans
Used look
This is the most common finish applied to jeans. Tighs, bottom, knees and pockets are made to look used by applying hand sanding, local application of chemicals and laser.
Distressed jeans
A pair of jeans worn for a few years starts to show signs of abrasion. It will first start to tear in hems and seams areas, followed by other parts later on. This effect can also be added to jeans artificially and in a more old-fashioned way - using different tools as grinders, lasers and even scissors.
Adding a distressed finish on jeans
Washing
Washing is an important part of a jeans production process. The jeans must be washed to clean all chemicals used in the fabric production, to make the jeans softer, pop out the color and create various fashion statements.
 |
 |
| Jeans factory washing machines |
Process of washing jeans to lose color |
Various finishes on jeans became popular in the 70’s and the techniques keep evolving to achieve not only amazing looks, but also conscious practices using less and less water, a precious resource. But this is for another post about sustainability of our Hockerty jeans!
Jeans trims & embellishments
Finally, once the jeans are cleaned, loose yarns are cut and buttons, labels and patches are added. Quality control checks that everything fits the measurements it should and is made to last and tadaa - your pair of jeans is ready!
Adding embellishments on jeans
Check out Nelson's review of our jeans!
