Denim is increasingly being held to environmentally friendly standards as consumers put pressure on brands and retailers to reduce jeans’ ecological footprint.

In response, Hyosung has developed a number of sustainable denim solutions, which the company looks forward to presenting to industry during its personalized Denim Days event taking place in New York City, Los Angeles and London on select dates in November 2021.

creora 3D Max spandex – for recyclable jeans

Circularity is top of mind and denim brands and mills are following Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign guidelines for recyclable denim. Jeans Redesign’s standards are meant to create jeans that are both more durable and easier to separate and recycle.

Among its guidelines is a requirement that denim be made with a minimum of 98% cellulosic material leaving 2% of the content for stretch or synthetic material – a challenge for Jeans Redesign participants as consumers are accustomed to high stretch and comfort. Hyosung aims to help denim brands and mills fit the program criteria with its creora 3D Max spandex.

“Starting from the beginning, clearly people have demonstrated they want stretch,” comments Mike Simko, Global Marketing Director, Hyosung Textiles. “The question becomes, how does the spandex industry react and make it so that you've got sustainability and circularity starting from the inputs?”

According to Simko, the industry wants denim that stretches by more than 50% with a maximum of 5% growth. Conventional spandex alone will provide stretch, but the recovery won’t live up to the standard—regardless the percentage of spandex in the material.

To achieve the recovery needed, the typical solution has been to mix polyester in with the spandex, creating a dual core that can more effectively bounce back, however this added polyester content means that synthetic yarns make up 12% to 16% of a finished garment, preventing denim from meeting the 98 percent threshold for Jeans Redesign.

Hyosung’s creora 3D Max offers a solution to achieve a balance of stretch and recyclability, since it delivers a high performance stretch even as a small portion of fabric content. The yarn swaps the typical polyester core for spandex, creating a fully stretch material that retains the recovery properties of the polyester-spandex combination.

creora regen spandex – for jeans made with 100% recycled materials

To improve the life cycle assessment of spandex, Hyosung has developed creora regen spandex, which is made of 100% reclaimed waste and has a 67 percent smaller carbon footprint than conventional spandex.

creora bio-based spandex – for jeans made with renewable resources

Hyosung’s creora bio-based spandex replaces 30% of chemicals with ones derived from dent corn, so when the corn is growing it consumes carbon dioxide, thus reducing greenhouse gases (all documented in SAC’s HIGG index).

GRS-certified 100% recycled multi-function fibres – for jeans with added performance

Hyosung will also present its portfolio of 100% recycled Mipan regen nylon and regen polyester yarns with multi-functional properties such as cooling and drying, light-weight, cotton-touch and comfort stretch.

For more information on Hyosung Denim Days dates and locations, please visit the Hyosung Performance blog at https://blog.hyosungtnc.com.