Denim comes in far more varieties than most people realize, and one of the most common is washed denim. The name refers to fabric that has been through a wash process not in your own machine, but during production. Once the raw cloth has been cut and sewn into jeans, a jacket, or anything else, the finished garment goes through washing to soften it and pull out color.
The appeal is speed. A wash can deliver a fade effect straight away, so if you would rather not wait months of daily wear to break in a pair, washed denim lets you walk out of the store already wearing that lived-in look. Below are some of the techniques that make it happen.
Garment wash is the gentlest of the group. It is used to rinse out the starch left in the fabric and to bring the indigo down a notch so the color reads a little softer rather than deep and saturated. The bonus is a noticeably softer hand, making the denim more comfortable from day one.
“The appeal is speed. A wash can deliver a fade effect straight away.”
Stone wash takes things further by tumbling the garments with pumice stones. The sharp, porous surface of the stones rubs against the cloth and lifts color unevenly, creating the high-contrast, characterful fading the technique is known for. Acid wash builds on the same idea, but the stones are first soaked in chlorine so the contrast comes out sharper and more dramatic.
Bio bleach, with or without stones, uses a bleaching agent to strip indigo and lighten the overall shade of the fabric. Sandblasting is the showpiece of the bunch: sand is sprayed onto specific areas of the garment to lighten just those spots, letting factories place fades exactly where they want them.
There are plenty more methods out there, including whiskering, scraping, and spray techniques, each with its own signature. We will save those for a future piece.
— Pride N Joy
