Denim PV x Thegoodgoods: leasing, second-hand, repair, upcycling, the new ways to use jeans The - Denim Première Vision
From December 9 to 16, Denim Première Vision partners with the French media Thegoodgoods for an entire week of content about denim. Each day, you will discover a new content on the Denim PV and Thegoodgoods websites to decipher all you need to know about eco-responsible denim: history, impacts, innovations, and of course, circular economy.
Today, we talk about the new ways to use jeans!
We saw that the impact of denim goes from inception through the end of its life, destruction being an important part of it. But why destroy it? Could we get out of the maniac habit of buying/wearing/throwing away and reboot our brains toward a new world?
A world made more of using that owning, a word in which we live a temporary time with our jean, and then change it, changing style or size, or wear it until the end and then bring it to be mended. Or we don’t use it enough and we lend it to the next person who only needs it seldomly and who don’t have the space nor the money to own 10 pairs. Leasing, renting, second-hand, upcycling, fixing. Here are 5 new ways to eco-consume denim while opening your (indigo) wings of your style.
Leasing
As the founder of Mud Jeans explain to us in Le Sapping, leasing involves not buying but to be custodian and user of a pair of jeans paying month cost. It is a deposit process as done back in time with milk bottles. The consumer becomes a user of the jeans, not having property of them. At the end of this usage, the jeans get returned to the company which either mind, resell or recycle them.
Mud Jeans
This is a service that the brand Mud Jeans was first to setup. You register at Mud Jeans for a fee, choose a pair of jeans and then pay monthly 7.5E for leasing cost. After a full year of leasing, you have various choices:
- Keep that pair, and the cost is paid by the one-year leasing fee you have already paid
- Send it back and get a new one in a reusable Redpack parcel. The only thing you will have to pay are the registering fee, leasing will be free for jeans number 2 and 3.
At any time during leasing, it is possible to exchange your jeans for another style or size, or have it repaired.
For the #denimheadz, it is of course possible to lease 2 pairs of jeans at the same time.
1083
1083 if following Mud by launching Le Jean Infini, based on a different leasing model: in this case, jeans are paid by the customer (99E for women style, 109E for men style) with a 20E deposit. You can then keep the jeans as long as you wish, 1, 5 or 20 years. We are talking about the first French jean in recycled fabric, recyclable and returnable.
Unlike the usual denim, it is not made of cotton but of recycled polyester. The Seaqual thread comes from Spain (80 km to the French border). Keeping its promise to have a maximum distance of 1083 km from production site to customer, it is made of plastic bottles and recycled sea-waste. It is then tinted in Pont-de-Labeaume (07) then woven in Coublanc (71) and made in Marseille (13).
By leasing your jeans, you officially become stakeholders of a new circular economy in which waste are recycled into new products.
It’s a saving model of raw material made of clothing waste, combine to a spare of virgin cotton. And so many clothes that will not end up in nature or unused in a closet.
Short term rental
Between private individuals or in stock, when you don’t want to or don’t have the need or the means to invest in a long-term piece, you can use the rental services which are widely available online.
You have several options for evening gowns or special occasion pieces. For everyday use, Le Closet (mainly women) offers a subscription of 39E per month, with an adaptable system based on the rented quantity. Le Grand Dressing (mostly masculine) also works by monthly subscription, however with 1, 2 or 4 looks formulas, from 39 to 129E. Both are without obligation linked to length of time.
These rental services allow you to continually renew your wardrobe. Your selection us sent to you in a box Wear / Send back / Restart. This can be a good way to test a shape, a fit, prior to investing a substantial sum of money. Dry cleaning and insurance are included in each offer.
2nd hand
Nudie Jean collect its own jeans and offer their clients a voucher in exchange. If the jeans are deteriorated, they are oriented toward a recycling process. If they are in good shape, they are washed, eventually repaired and reconditioned to be sold online on their own web site!
THE 2nd HAND REINTEGRATED AT NUDIE JEANS, « RE-USE » COLLECTION
Upcycling
The art of transforming what has already been created. Enhance the existing textile deposit to make new pieces…
We are convinced by the subject of upcycling that we’ve been talking about in our podcast with Monia Sbouaï as well as in this article. Today, international caliber players are taking a position on this market with continued growth, in response to the expectations of informed consumers. Equally for the uniqueness of the concept as for ecological aspects, upcycling is a vast field of possibilities subject to important development.
Re/done
« Iconic. Durable. Unique » this moto is the one of RE/DONE, a wonderful upcycling brand.
RE/DONE is the first luxury upcycling brand, distributed online. The founders Sean Barron and Jamie Mazur are as in love with denim material as enthusiastic for responsible fashion. They believe that iconic brands as Lewis produced incredible pieces that are vintage today and in excellent shape that can have another life on the market by being recut, repaired, redesigned. Pockets, washes, wear/crease signs, nothing to throw away, but on the contrary, fabric, as a good wine, would get better with time.
Every piece is unique, adopted individually by an owner who’s happy to purchase a piece of past and future history. Jeans are collected by experts and sorted by hand, as well as washed and treated in a workshop in the heart of Los Angeles, before being cut and reassembled. The processes limit the quantity of water and chemicals.
Blue of a kind
Blue Of A Kind upcycled italian jean brand that gives prominence to History. The history of this fabric which is wonderfully moving and lasting in time but also of the traditional savoir faire of Italian master tailors. Each object tells the story of a life prepares another one. Each piece is also unique and the functional details give its charm.
The brand create each piece based on the Kintsugi philosophy : the art of repairing broken object with gold, precious details that magnify the imperfections. So the brand is opposed to fast fashion, to textile waste and to hyper consumerism in its manifesto.
The collected jeans are vintage or extracted from dormant stock in France or in Italy. They are not rewashed nor redyed. The production is concentrated in a 50km radius by italian artisans in traditional factories.
Some subtle details reveal that expertise : the brand distorts the codes of finishing detail usually made by trouser tailors, as satin pocket linings, custom borders adjusted millimeters by millimeters.
« Grand-ma meets social network », a renewal philosophy with an enchanting result.
The Repair
A jean never has its own look before it’s been worn for years, therefore adapted to its body and movements. The most durable way to use cloth is not to consume them and take advantage of those that exist for what they are. By repairing them, you reduce their footprint and enhance the love for have for them. Repairing is, without a doubt, the most durable relationship, in every meaning of the word.
Lead by the Worn Wear of Patagonia, more and more brands offer repairing services to their customers. It could be tips or Do-it-Yourself guides as at Bonne Gueule or at Loom. It could also be official Repair Corner as at Nudie Jeans who proposes a Mobile Repair Station in their boutiques in which the client can get special advice or receive a repair kit. They can also be ordered online.
Up to you to close the circular loop!