Waterless Wash Demos at Project
LAS VEGAS—Wash houses use gallons of water and chemicals to get denim to that perfect distressed patina and ultra-soft hand. A Spanish research and development company, Jeanologia, is achieving similar effects and hand-feel with a machine that substitutes light and ozone for water and sand.
Visitors to the recent Project trade show saw the machine in action in an installation produced by Martiheacute; + Franccedil;ois Girbaud and dubbed Wattwash+ Ozzone by the French brand.
Jeanologia technicians, decked out in white lab coats, loaded unwashed denim “blanks” into the GFK Twin machine, which is about the size of a station wagon. A crowd watched as small puffs of blue smoke rose off the jeans, starting from the hem and moving up to the waistband.
When the smoke hit the jean’s rivets and zippers, little sparks of light ignited. The process was then repeated for the jean’s back side.
“You wash with light,” said Neus Molto, a member of the creative department of Valencia, Spain–based Jeanologia. “It’s really magical.”
The distressing and finishing is designed in a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop and imported to the machine, which uses a laser to “burn” off the indigo dye, Molto explained.
After the laser treatment, the denim is finished with an ozone treatment to lighten the color and soften the hand.
“We were looking for an ethical way of working. It’s not enough to be ecological,” Molto said. “And it’s efficient. You don’t waste water, you don’t heat water, you don’t use chemicals.”
For more information about Jeanologia, visit www.jeanologia.com. —Alison A. Nieder
