Karachi, Pakistan: AGI Denim, a leading denim manufacturer, announces collaborating with a sustainable fashion brand Triarchy to create a fully recyclable denim collection. The 5-piece capsule "Cellsius: Designing with The Earth in Mind" comprises a jean, a jacket, a tunic dress, a pair of shorts, and a vest. Cellsius is sold exclusively at Neiman Marcus stores and online at triarchy.com.
The vertical denim manufacturer approached this project by assembling a coalition of the industry's most innovative raw materials producers and technology suppliers. Stakeholders for this project include Renewcell for fiber, Coats for thread, Jeanologia for laser and dry process, and Kaiser for chemistry. The collection has been manufactured under Ellen MacArthur Foundation's The Jeans Redesign guidelines, ensuring the garments consider circularity from production to the end of the product lifecycle.
Ahmed Javed, Executive Director of AGI Denim, stated, "Responsible manufacturing has been a core belief for us. We have put this into practice when it comes to our production methods, and we are excited to showcase this in the final product.
Creating a biodegradable garment and disassembling it in just a few steps is a radical innovation. We are grateful that our supply chain partners helped make this a reality.
We hope this collaboration acts as a blueprint for scaling circular manufacturing as it creates a business model that can bring about collective action for better clothes."
The collaboration begins with fiber, one of the essential ingredients in fabric. AGI Denim taps into award-winning innovator Renewcell. The fabric is made with a 100% cellulosic blend, consisting of 70% organic cotton, 9% Circulose a recycled material from textile waste, and 21% viscose from sustainably managed forests.
Mechanical recycling initially required tearing facilities to discard synthetic garments portions, including polyester pocket linings and threads. Using cotton, the pocketing in these garments supports the process by reducing waste.
The garments are then sewn using Coats EcoCycle threads, which can be dissolved at the end of the lifecycle by immersing the garment at 100°C for 20 minutes. Coats is a pioneer in performance materials and offers safe solutions for companies worldwide. As Coats’ exclusive partner, AGI Denim extended support during research for the feasibility of these threads within a denim use case.
Finishing in denim laundries is a critical process that adds embellishments consumers love to their jeans. Manufacturers use a combination of dry and wet processes to achieve these fashion effects. For the Cellsius collection, laser tech from Jeanologia was used for an eco-friendly dry process. Jeanologia helps level up the collection with its cutting-edge machinery and expansive technical knowledge about garment production.
The wet process uses ozone bleach and stone-free enzymes from Kaiser, a leading sustainable laundry auxiliaries and colorants provider. These are efficient and eliminate the use of harmful chemicals.
AGI Denim exclusively used its Refresh technology recycled water for this production, from dyeing and finishing the fabric to washing the jeans, eliminating freshwater use. This remarkable achievement in sustainable garment production highlights the industry's commitment to reducing water waste.
Where jeans and jackets commonly have metal and plastic zippers, the pieces in the Celsius collection use buttons made from lyocell fiber and are biodegradable.
This collaboration represents a step forward towards responsible fashion. Recyclable products make a strong case for the industry to take inspiration from and scale up circular production.
As AGI Denim and Triarchy continue to work towards creating environmentally friendly products, this collaboration showcases the opportunities that lie ahead for the fashion industry.
About AGI Denim: AGI Denim (Artistic Garment Industries) is a leading vertical premium denim manufacturer in Pakistan, with a long-standing history dating back to 1949. The company is at the forefront of the industry, committed to minimizing its environmental impact while maximizing social and economic benefits. AGI Denim's innovative culture and commitment to sustainability and social responsibility are reflected in its best-in-class infrastructure, end-to-end LEED Gold certification, and B Corp certification.
The company strongly emphasizes responsible fiber sourcing and traceability, ensuring its products are produced ethically and sustainably. Water stewardship is also a key focus, with a high percentage of recycling and responsible use of this precious resource. AGI Denim's commitment to renewable energy is demonstrated through its use of modern plants and machinery that are energy-saving, efficient, and increasingly powered by solar energy.
AGI Denim is proud of its employee recognition and gender equality programs, such as Gap Inc.'s P.A.C.E program and Kontoor Brands' Her Essentials training, which empowers women in the workplace. The company is committed to strong corporate governance and CSR practices, which have earned it the patronage of some of the world's top retail and designer brands.
Recently, AGI Denim invested $75 million into state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting-edge technology, commencing production in a new industrial park with over one million square feet of purpose-built area. AGI Denim continues to produce quality denim, using only the latest equipment and machinery, in a safe and productive work environment as the only B Corp company in Pakistan.
About Triarchy: Triarchy is a family-owned and operated denim brand that is leading the way in responsible denim manufacturing. This is done by using only certified organic cotton, recycled cotton, Tencel, and Refibra, alongside the world’s first plastic-free stretch denim. This natural rubber stretch means the jeans will biodegrade in 2 years or less at the end of life, instead of the industry standard of 200+ years for plastic-based stretch.
Triarchy is washed responsibly using a combination of e-flow, ozone, and laser technologies. These practices drastically reduce or eliminate virgin water consumption and chemical use, while still making authentic vintage-looking denim without the harmful processes that to date have been a staple in denim manufacturing.
They offset the carbon from each pair of jeans via a tailored carbon offset program that contributes a portion of each sale to three different global projects. These efforts make Triarchy a carbon-neutral brand.
Triarchy works with 3rd party auditors to provide total transparency on triarchy.com and via unique QR codes embedded in each garment that exposes their supply chain via blockchain-verified supply chain map Retraced. Via a second embedded QR code, Triarchy shares the jean's specific consumption statements and their responsible manufacturing practices, wash processes, and carbon offset project verifications via Greenstory.
Triarchy is plastic-free, PETA approved, a member of One Tree Planted & is available at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Saks 5th Ave, Harrods, Intermix, and more.
About Renewcell: Founded by innovators from Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2012, Re:NewCell AB (publ) ('Renewcell') is a multi-award-winning sustaintech company based in Sweden. The company's vision is to make fashion circular.
Through its patented process, Renewcell is able to recycle cellulosic textile waste, such as worn-out cotton clothes and production scraps, transforming it into a pristine new material called Circulose. Drapers Magazine recognized Circulose at their 2022 Sustainable Fashion Awards. Fast Company named Renewcell one of the World's Most Innovative Companies 2021. Circulose was also included on TIME Magazine's list of the 100 Best Inventions 2020.
Circulose makes fashion circular. Circulose is a branded dissolving pulp made from 100% textile waste, such as worn-out cotton jeans and cotton production scraps. Dissolving pulp is used to make viscose, lyocell and other types of man-made cellulosic fibers. These fibers are then spun into yarns, woven or knitted into fabrics and finally cut and sewn into new high-quality fashion products. The only difference with Circulose is that they are made with textile waste instead of just new cotton, plastic or wood.
Circulose is produced by Renewcell in Sweden in a recycling process powered by 100% renewable energy. Founded by innovators from Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2012, Renewcell is now scaling rapidly in pursuit of its vision of making fashion circular.
About Coats: Innovative pioneer in performance materials. These critical solutions are used to create a wide range of products, including ones that provide safety and protection for people, data, and the environment. Headquartered in the UK, Coats is a FTSE250 company and a FTSE4Good Index constituent. Revenues in 2022 were $1.6bn.
Trusted by the world's leading companies to deliver vital, innovative, and sustainable solutions, Coats provides value-adding products including apparel, accessory and footwear threads, structural components for footwear and accessories, fabrics, yarns, and software applications. Customer partners include companies from the apparel, footwear, automotive, telecoms, personal protection, and outdoor goods industries.
With a proud heritage dating back more than 250 years and spirit of evolution to constantly stay ahead of changing market needs, Coats has operations across some 50 countries with a workforce of over 17,000, serving its customers worldwide.
Coats connects talent, textiles, and technology, to make a better and more sustainable world. Worldwide, there are three dedicated Coats Innovation Hubs, where experts collaborate with partners to create the materials and products of tomorrow. It participates in the UN Global Compact and is committed to Science Based sustainability targets for 2030 and beyond, with a goal of achieving net-zero by 2050. Coats is also committed to achieving its goals in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, workplace health & safety, employee & community wellbeing, and supplier social performance.
About Jeanologia: Since 1994 Jeanologia' s mission has been to create an ethical, sustainable, and eco-efficient industry through their disruptive technology and know-how. Their laser, G2 ozone, e-flow, Smart Boxes and H2Zero, have revolutionized the textile industry. They offer infinite design and garment finishing possibilities, while saving water, energy, and chemicals, eliminating discharge and toxic emissions. Today, Jeanologia encourages all textile industry stakeholders to get behind their Mission Zero: dehydrate and detoxify the jean industry by 2025. No more water or toxic chemicals are used in a single pair of jeans around the world. We need to be rebels again and embrace the technology that allows us to meet our goals.
About Kaiser: Kaiser is a leading laundry auxiliaries and colorants provider, offering sustainable solutions for customers across the world. With a DyStar heritage of more than a century in product development and innovation for the textile industry, Kaiser offers the best available products and technologies for laundries.
