REPROCESS

C O N T E N T S

Intro 1 - 4

Denim Jeans 5 - 6

Seed to Tee 9 - 10

Fiber Boy 13 -14

Fiber Boy 2 15 -16

REPROCESS

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REPROCESS

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Soon, very soon in fact, shopping centres and high streets across

the country will be loaded with affordable Fashion Week inspired pieces for all the trendy masses.

Stop. Before reading any further, just stop and take a moment to analyse yourself. What are you wearing, do you actually know about the designers, sewers, design-ers, farmers, suppliers and not to forget the countless other people and counties behind all that styl-ish clothing? Do we know how the item was manufactured or how the workers were treated? The answer is NO. No we do not.

Prepare to be hosed down with facts, facts and more facts about all the fancy clothes you have stashed away in your wardrobes. This month’s issue will travel in-depth towards the mysterious process behind the materials you see on a daily basis.

DENIMJEANS

05in 1843 in the United States. Levi Strauss designed a pair of dura-ble work trousers for laborers, complete with copper rivets that reinforced wear-and-tear seams.

Eventually, average Janes and Joes adopted jeans, and they became the preferred casual pants for many Americans. Denim, “a heavy, Z-twist, twill cotton for jeans, overalls, and other work

Whether they are skinny, boot-legged, or low-rise, most Americans have at least one pair that we couldn’t live without.

Jeans are as American as apple pie, right? In fact, the word “jean” comes from the French jean fustian. Fustian is a type of twilled cotton cloth originally from Genoa, Italy. The plural form of the word was first used

and leisure garments,” derives from the French serge de Nîmes, serge being another twill fab-ric, “from Nimes,” a town in Southern France.

“Pants” is short for pantaloons, a type of tights that were pop-ular centuries ago. Pantaloons were associated with Pantaloun, a “silly old man character in Italian comedy who wore tight

trousers over his skinny legs.” The character was originally San Panteleone, a Christian martyr and a popular saint in Venice.

The next time someone tells you to do something by the seat of your pants, impress them with the following bit of trivia. Supposedly, the expression that means “by human instinct” was originally used to refer to pilots

who were able to sense the con-dition of the plane by the engine vibrations they felt through the seat of their pants. We’re taking sugges-tions for other articles of clothing you would like to learn about. For example, why does a brassiere (the women’s undergarment), sound so much like a brazier (a metal recep-tacle for holding live coals or other fuel, as for heating a room)? Let us know what you would like to know.

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SEED TO TEE

Although T-shirts are made of different fabric mate-rials, Cotton is pre-dominantly the most and best used fabric around the world. Cotton is easy to die and has good colour retention. In addi-tion, it also blends well with other fibres such as elastane.

Cotton processing has been perfected over many generations and the result is the quality that we enjoy today. The production of a cotton T-shirt can be summarised in 10 processes.

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SEED TO TEE

Farming - Growing cotton is not an easy process and requires a long growing season, sunny and warm weather, plenty of water and dry weather for harvest.

Ginning - The principal function of the cotton gin is to seperate lint (cotton) from seed and produce the highest total monetary return for the resulting lint and seeds. The seed collected for ginning is often sent for extracting cotton-seed oil.

Spinning - Spinning involves a series of machines that turn the compacted, ginned cotton into yarn. First, the compacted bale is beaten and picked to loosen the cotton into a more managebale state.

Knitting - During the knit process, spun yarn is turned into cloth by pulling loops, called stitches, through one another.

Fisnishing - This process involves wash-ing out any particulate matter, bleach or dye it to a particular colour, shrink the fabric as much as possible and soften the fabric to prevent any holes.

Cutting - The cutting process involves cutting the bodies and sleeves out of the tube of fabric recieved from the finisher.

Sewing is the last step in the actual construction of the shirt itself, and is the most labour-intensive.

Printing - After receiving the shirt cuttings, t-shirt panels are printed using various techniques, i.e. screen-printing, digital printing, heat embossing, or spray painting. Screen printing is one of the best and most conventional way.

Dyeing - To add more value to the fabric feel and colour, T-shirt s are garment dyed after printing. Though there are many dye meth-ods available, paddle dye tubs are used because of their ease of operation and maintenance.

After all the processes have been done, the final T-shirt is then sent to the retailers, both in-stores and online stocklists.

The world’s most important apparel fiber makes up over 50% of the fab-ric sold throughout the world to including men’s cotton suits, cotton dress shirts, hosiery, underwear, and just about every piece of casual wear to include jeans and sweatshirts.

The popularity of cotton is no accident. Cotton fiber has a long history with man, and it has endured because its unique prop-erties make it ideal for clothing.

Cotton fabric is attractive, dura-ble, comfortable, takes to dyes, and most importantly has proven itself to be a superior fiber for men’s clothing manufacturing.

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Cotton is divided into various groups depending on its physi-cal characteristics; we will focus on two of the most important characteristics, the length of the cotton fiber and its fineness.

Cotton fibers vary in length con-siderably, from half an inch to 2 inches. Higher quality is often associated with longer length, and achieving this desired state is more expensive due the risk

of a longer growth cycle and an increased demand on resources.

Long fibers make up only 3% of the worldwide output, and their use is typically reserved for high end shirt fabrics and other luxury. Cotton fiber fineness (the fiber’s diameter) is the second impor-tant quality of this king of fabrics.High end fabric producers look to weed out irregularities and immature cotton fibers – these

latter tend to be 20% thinner than mature fibers and can lead to early wear in shirtings fabrics due tot he fact they are less durable.

Cotton fabric’s properties have made it a staple in menswear for thousands of years. Despite it hav-ing drawbacks and losing ground to less expensive synthetic fib-ers, cotton will continue to be a large part of a man’s wardrobe.

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Negative Impacts of Cotton

Mainstream cotton farms use chemical pesticides and bio-engi-neering to get the highest quality and yield per acre. I won’t elaborate on the damage here, as the unin-tended consequences of chemical runoff and the creation of more resistant pest insects are well documented.

Another environmental problem with cotton is how water and mineral intensive it is; improper growing can lead to heavy soil min-eral depletion and erosion.

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Positives of Cotton

Cotton is a renewable resource that has successfully clothed man for centuries. In part to the Green movement, Organic Cotton has risen in importance and economic viability. Organic cotton uses no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, and therefore leaves a smaller foot-print on the environment.

However it has a lower yield per acre and a lack of economies of scale in the industry – the cost to get organic cotton to the consumer often doubles the price of this fiber.

Over the last 20 years we have also seen the re-emergence of natu-rally colored cottons. Cultivated for thousands of years, although now just receiving more attention from fashion houses, naturally colored cotton fiber can be grown in red, brown, beige, and green. Other naturally grown colors are in development.

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