Each year they produce 20 million square metres of denim fabric enough to

make 13 million pairs of jeans it’s gonna make some dinner and it all starts
at intake with the delivery of dennis’s key ingredient cotton factory owner
Alberto candiani is checking in today’s ship Alberta Greg good to meet you
pleasure to meet you that’s cotton right where is it from what this one in
particular comes from Ivory Coast but we do source cotton all over the world
do you know how many genes you can get from each Bale from each bill you
get about 350 pairs of jeans meaning you have roughly 35,000 genes on that
load I would love to see the process what is the first step while we need the
forklift to unload this so let’s go yeah the first step is getting it off the track
as the first of our cotton bales is unloaded production about genes begins
cotton is the world’s most used natural fibre with around 25,000,000 tonnes
produced each year but it’s not without its controversy I’ve heard that cotton
has quite a negative effect on the environment is is that true no that’s not
necessarily true I mean cotton is known as a thirsty plant but it’s not always
the case and we love to work with special contents like regenerative cotton
for instance which comes from regenerative farming practises regenerative
farming uses crop rotation and reduced usage of water and pesticides to
promote soil health and biodiversity it's showing the land remains healthy
enough to grow the crop year after year more and more cotton producers are
turning to this eco friendly approach So what do you need then for dinner
were looking at the length of the fibre we’re looking at the strength of the
fibre and we also look at the colour of the fibre it’s all white it’s not it could
be more or less white and the white are the better why’d you want whiter it
represents better quality and it’s actually easier to die ah OK alright this
warehouse contains enough cotton to produce around 500,000 pairs of jeans
but where did this design classic originate Ruth is on the trail the American
West famous for its Cowboys kitted out in stepsons and denim but I’m not in
California I’m at Horsham in West Sussex at the Deadwood western town
nowadays blue jeans may well be synonymous with rockers bikers hipsters
but it was places like this in the 19th century that truly gave rise to this
everyday item helping me to trace this incredible journey is jeans historian
marsin Sajid so it wasn’t just this story of denim beginning America I think
the story of denim or then he probably most likely starts in Europe in Italy in
France there’s lots of historical reference with weaving that comes from
France and Italian friends so I’ve heard a sort of like story saying that denim
itself means de nimes from nimes which is in France the jeans is also another
corruption of a European Genoa is this true absolutely correct so all of these
tailors went over to America and they took all that knowledge with in the mid
19th century America was a land of opportunity and the famous gold rushes
saw thousands of fortune hunters make their way West but mining was a
hard and dirty job that required some robust workwear So what we got here
this is a 18 forties 4 front garment they don’t look anything like jeans there’s
no no they work where they were made for putting on top of another
government by the end of 1848 three 100,000 people had flocked to
California all in need of clothes that could cope with the stresses and strains
of mining so they were closely followed by opportunistic business owners
who took advantage of the abundant supply of cotton already grown across
the country to cash in there was one in particular called Jacob Davis a
Latvian born Jewish immigrant tailor and he was making garments for all the
gold and silver miners biggest people were filling up their pockets with tools
and Roxanne the fabric wasn’t as strong as it is now so of course it would
tear away Jacob Davis came up with the idea of like riveting garments for the
very first time if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be wearing jeans like today or
if it is simply a permanent mechanical fastener by hammering them into the
points of strain like the pocket seems the genes became stronger the
invention was a trouser game changer but nobody’s ever heard of Jacob Dino
absolutely right but he had the really genius idea and he knew it was a really
great idea and he knew other people would want to copy it so Jacob Davis
had the idea to patent the points of strain and the actual rivet itself but he
didn’t have enough money for the for the actual patents so he went through
the guy that he’s getting your fabric from so who is this chat Levi Strauss
legal Levi Strauss right a successful gold rush supply business in San
Francisco so crucially he had the money for the patent that Davis needed for
his improved genes so Jacob Davis goes to his supplier says let’s do this
together he was just a humble little Taylor it was a lot of money back then to
Peyton anything but he knew it was ingenious idea so they both went in it
together for some reason one name has come through history in the other
name hasn’t the patent was granted on the 20 th of may 1873 and Levi
Strauss jeans were born but how did they go from humble workwear to the
iconic clothing or my princes and presidents rockers and rappers mohsin’s
home is a shrine to the history of jeans with a collection of more than 3000
pairs Oh my goodness it’s fantastic so when does this transition happen from
workwear into what has to be called fashion where it was roughly in the 30s.
Where you start seeing it in vogue now at the time the dude ranch craze saw
city dwellers visit the Wild West for a taste of the cowboy lifestyle and jeans
with a go to garment After World War 2 denim was embraced by Hollywood
as a garment of rebellion so these important films that feature these
Hollywood like celebrities from Warner Brothers James Dean to London row
they influence a lot of what people should be wearing in there they were
considered the coolest of the call this expression of counterculture was
cemented by the hippie movement of the late 1960s and jeans became a
mainstream fashion favourite so we’ve got a continental European fabric
development that goes over to America that becomes reinforced workwear
that then becomes fashion wear and then right around the globe that’s The
funny thing about it if you look at any gene at all it relates back to this this
1920s model so they’ve barely changed in over a century but it’s not Levi
Strauss which should be thanking but Jacob Davis lecture on this 6000 miles
from America’s Wild West however the daily meal in Italy my cotton back
bills are transported across the factory by conveyor now it's all about getting
the cotton ready to be woven into denim fit for a pair of jeans hello what is
this these are the blocker machines what blockers this is where we make our
cotton the cotton comes from different farms across the world so to create a
consistent blend these ingenious machines move back and forth along the
line plucking a layer from the top of each Bale the plucked fibres and mixed
together in giant metal chambers before passing into a card where a system
of cones untangle and align the fibres into three centimetre wide spaghetti
like strands called slivers the slivers are loaded into barrels and then it’s on
to the fast main factory floor wow what is it look at this like there is so much
coming up where do you stop pretty cool right that is really cool in this
enormous room 132 barrels contain 9000 metre long slivers which are loaded
into 22 intriguing contraptions called drawing frames six limits are fed into
each machine which further played and untangle the cotton to create one
massive super sliver lovely God told me through this ‘cause that looks great
so we finally managed to make that messy cotton very fine various move
here the fibres are parallel they're clean they're almost ready to be spun all
the fibres are perfectly straight and they’re all perfectly aligned it’s really
hard to accept that this soft silky thing will become hard wearing dead it it
will be I promise The Super soft cotton now passes through 25 metre long
roving machines which apply tension and A twist making it stronger and
thinner finally the cotton is ready to be spun into yarn in the spinning
department and what another incredible room this poetry just gets busier
and stranger the boy you go into it the factory has 25 of these enormous 36
metre long machines which are simultaneously spinning 6000 individual
spools of yarn incredible incredible Alberto teach me what is happening so
this is their rings spinning finally we’re spinning our yard boys spitting please
spinning games pulling the cotton and twisting the cotton again to give more
strength to the yard at the same time the cotton goes for those feeling left
and right there we decide how thick we want the yarn to be inside the
cylinder is it like turning on or off attack it’s overcoming through thicker or is
coming through thinner absolutely each strand of yarn passes through these
cylinders known as a slumber the rotation speed of the cylinders is
constantly changing to create fluctuations in the thickness of the yarn so
they're effectively engineering floors why would you want imperfection in the
yard want to make it special to make it unique in a way because otherwise
you that have very flat yarn that has no character we call those
imperfections ring character and you can see it in the ginger wearing this
process of altering the width of each individual strand gives finished denim a
distinctive uneven feel and irregular texture the yarn is many times thicker
than what's used to make fine cotton shirts along with the tight weave this
gives denim it’s heavyduty stiff feel I understand the process but I’m looking
at this country there is literally row upon row upon row how much yarn is
spinning everyday he’s about 1.3 million kilometres of yard everyday
everyday extraordinary 17 hours and 45 minutes after the start of our denim
production the yarn is loaded onto a frame which wines 4480 individual
lengths ultimate enormous 2 metre wide cylinders called beams ready to
receive a splash of indigo blue ¾ of the denim produced in this factory is
dyed this deep rich blue colour but when did we start using indigo Ruth is
exploring its ancient history nowadays modern clothing manufacturers use
synthetic dyes to colour their yarn turn back the clock and things were rather
more organic this rather ordinary looking plant is truly amazing this is an
indigo plant and without it the world of fashion would be a whole lot duller
online I’ve come to the magnificent palm house at Kew Gardens in London
where I’m meeting indigo historian Jenny Balfour Paul so how old is indigo
oldest textile dyed with indigo 6200 years old 6000 bad is that where is that
in Peru actually the coast of Peru we’ve also got the Gyptian mummy cloth
then you’ve got Chinese tech stars 5000 years it’s a long old story the oldest
natural dye in the world you find it in different plant species right across the
globe but there will be a plant that will provide you with indigo is not
incredible teasing clear incredible in the UK indigo dye was processed from
the leaves of a native European wild flower called world which was used to
dye wool and clothing until the end of the 16 th century but it was
comparatively weak next more tropical plant species such as indigofera
tinctoria or true indigo’cause a 30 times more indigo content in indigo that’s
extracted from the leaves in tropical places than there is in the world leaves
30 times stronger tropical indigo was imported to Europe but at first it wasn’t
used for colouring fabric as far too expensive it wasn’t considered a diet was
considered paid to the pigment I’ve just used to paint tombs and things and
make up and then it’s coming in over land from India in a lump that looked
like a stone is a pivotal moment in 1498 when Vasco de Gama discovers how
to go by seat India the Portuguese explorer Vasco de gama’s voyage was the
first successful sea voyage from Europe to Asia and it transformed trade
between the two continents suddenly spices could come in and actually
when the Portuguese got access by sea to India the first thing they brought
in was indigo not pepper it was the most important thing suddenly a
concentrated strong indigo heroku they keep examples of a more potent
tropical indigo which began to be used for dyeing clothes in Europe and its
weaker cousin word right that was the traditional north and stuff the word
and this is the new tropical yes coming in so this knew die can do everything
that the old product could do absolutely but a bit better this is extracted
from the leaf so instead of having a whole leaf compost here with some
indigo in it this is actually pulling the pigment out of the lead so think how
concentrated that is as well as tropical indigo the new trade routes from the
east were also bringing in cotton and for the wealthy this fashionable fabric
quickly replaced traditional woollen clothing the world in the mediaeval times
was perfect for the wool but it’s not good enough to dye cotton because
cotton needs a much stronger dye it does in a process that can take several
days indigo usually needs to be reduced in an alkaline solution but today
we’re using a revolutionary new organic pre reduced die incredibly Jenny has
samples of indigo dating back to the 17th century so where did this sample
come from a Spanish galleon or the conception and it sank in the storm’s off
what star Dominican Republic half the cargo was dies this is actually some of
it yes this is being at the bottom of the sea for nearly 400 in 41 and look at
the colours I got that could be jeans today quite extraordinary and today’s
ancient dying experiment have been just as successful so why is it do you
think that is so special about blue we’re surrounded by blue where the blue
planet the sky is blue the water is reflected blue so the miracle Of actually
capturing the blue of the sky and our planet in a diet which would then die
clothing all over the world was optioned Immaculate back in Italy I’m ready
to give my cotton some colour too we’re over 19 hours into production and
my yarn’s gone through 5 intricate process is been spun onto a huge cylinder
called a beam and is finally heading to the dye house inside this huge room
17,000 kilometres of freshly spun cotton yarn is dyed the iconic indigo blue
every hour guiding me through the process is Simone Giuliani this is exciting
seem alright hi Greg is this where you die the dead that’s correct this whole
machine here is what we used to dye our yarns that classic indigo colour
hang on hang on not all the way to the bottom of the warehouse all the way
to the bus the length of the yarn within the machine is over 500 metres
crikey but let me show you how it works for the young can be dyed blue it’s
plunged into a tank called a box containing an organic sulphur dye which
gives it a base grey hue then it sent into the 1st of a series of boxes to
transform it into the rich indigo colour but hang on a minute there appears to
be a problem that’s green you know that right that is bright green I know this
is pretty funny but the first step when the yarn comes out of the bath it is
screen but then went to indigo gets in touch with oxygen and starts to
oxidise and that’s when it turns glue it comes out bright green in a matter of
minutes it says bright blue that’s right that’s correct that’s quite a neat
magic trick So what is colouring exactly we’re using a synthetic indigo dye
which is the exact copy of a natural indigo dye we’re not using natural indigo
dye for simple reason that for one dying light that we’re doing here we would
require 10 football fields of indigofera which is the plan that gives you the
indigo synthetic indigo was first created in 1878 and by the start of the 20th
century it had largely replaced natural dye altogether so the fun thing is
actually at indigo and coffee bagel like each other but the simple fact of the
indigo magical is too big to penetrate the fibre So what it does it just dirty’s
the fibre superficially the molecular composition of indigo means it forms a
coating on the outside of the column that can rub off over time so when you
wear your jeans within time that indigo chips off the white of the yarn comes
out and that creates those natural phase how long your gene I think that’s
really cool because a lot of things are built and designed to look as new as
possible for as long as possible but you’re actually designing something to
age to age in its own way yeah that’s the beauty of denim al y’all now
passes through six more 700 litre boxes of indigo dye which builds the colour
in layers becoming more and more intense next the yard passes through a
water bath where ultrasound technology produces shockwaves to remove
excess die the files that efficient process saves 52,000,000 litres of water per
year compared to conventional manufacturing methods after just 7 minutes
our yard emerges so Greg here we go this is our final indigo blue dyed yarn
that is obviously the kind of a friendly para jeans right that’s exactly so
where is it now going these these yards so we’re collecting all these yarns on
a beam down here on a big role we have 4480 yards here and for each yard
we collect 2.9 kilometres on that role so if we multiply the length we collect
times the number of yarns we have almost 13,000 kilometres of yarn on one
row 13,000 on each run that’s right how long does it take you to fill up all
wrong it takes an hour and a half or less and daily we call off between 14 and
16 rolls her production line with four production lines running that means this
one factory produces a staggering 800,000 kilometres or half a million miles
of indigo yarn per day enough for 55,000 pairs of jeans from the dining room
the blue yarn is transported across the factory to weaving what is this the
noise of this place look at that and I all the same machine doing the same
job same job different article different quality different colours this fast
weaving room is one of three in the factory and contains 112 specialist
machines known as project I’ll lose alone by excited he said in the yard that
we have died previous place we called it the war and there comment from
the beam right into the loop and we combine in here with a white western
coming from over there and gets shot across the room so basically the
concept of weaving open up the blue yard shoot the white webs across and
then invert the direction and keep doing that so this is how we’ve the fabric
denim uses a three by one twill weave as the white weft yarn shoots across
the loop it travels underneath 3 blue warp threads then over the top of 1
blue thread in a repeating pattern providing a distinctive feature on the
backside we have more white yarn right there 21 metres of denim fabric rolls
off each loom every hour from weaving it’s then sent to the factories
finishing department where it passes through machines which smooth and
stabilise the fabric and stretch it to prevent twisting when its own into a pair
of jeans is this finally here is this that finished Adam this is finally the
finished denim that can now be turned into cheese thank you was a pleasure
thank you Greg but I’ve still got a pair of jeans to my past right maybe one
day in six hours since production began our denim receives a final quality
check it's cut into 150 metre lengths and sent Iowa State grow font transport
to the jeans factory in West Wales there we are back in Wales right let’s see
what they doing with my identity one of the most important jobs in the
factory is that of the master garment cutter who used his skill and precision
to cut out the pieces of premium denim for our jeans so I’m heading to the
cutting room to meet Claudio bellotti morning fellas how I recognise that
that’s a beautiful beautiful thing so why have you got six of the sheets and
this is an order for six garments out of this particular size I see what we have
here is the actual pattern for one pair of jeans which we place on top on then
we cut to six flies so you end up with six goals so all of these patterns here
they're all a part of the genes correct you have your two front legs we finally
got my horse meat so friendly 2 back legs no way so you do actually column
front legs we call him legs in the business yeah so you got 2 front legs to
back 2 front legs stroke panels I now know why it’s taking up so much
material you’re making up for opponent bright enough horsing around have
you laid out this this cloth in any particular way you have to lay out the
actual pattern in particular way because on a piece of fabric you have a war
on the West direction I know that the walk is down the fabric down the piece
the left is across the piece why would it matter if we if we turned it the other
way around and cut it against the grain if because what would happen if you
cut it in the wrong direction when you wash the garments it would twist
really we’re making the classic 5 pocket Jean which has changed very little in
more than 120 years it’s a complex 3 dimensional jigsaw made-up of 16
denim pieces including four leg sections at 2 back pockets plus hardware
including seven rivets would you like to have a go OK yeah yeah yeah last
safety close complete safety suit please if that’s alright if I get this wrong I’m
potentially messing up six pairs of jeans right it would be this right here goes
no love you now this is where it gets interesting around the bank that’s right
oh who’s your rest that is terrible back revolt up I guess being a garment
cutter just isn’t in my jeans better let the expert finish up here Claudio uses a
straight knife run by an electric motor at 3000 RPM to raise and lower a razor
sharp blade which can cut up to 60 layers of denim at a time I will call you in
the industry how did you come when I left school at 15 and cardigan you still
have a factory that was the biggest jeans manufacturer in the UK just
produced in about 36,000 genes a week after one there was a small factory
here already and the business expanded this particular sites through with the
business that’s the last piece Claudio this has been enlightening my friend
and really nice chance with master master cuts leisure it took over 24 hours
to make the denim but claudio's just cut the 96 pieces for my 6 pairs of jeans
in 10 minutes over the course of a year Claudio and his team will cut out 160
thousand of these individual jigsaw pieces with the fly alone requiring 3
separate bits of material the jeans I’m helping to fashion feature a classic
butterfly but some of the trousers they make here have zips cherries finding
out how this everyday faster is made invented in the USA more than a
century ago today zips can be found in almost every home on the planet zips
are a game changer that we rely on every single day from my coat to my bag
this simple device is used to quickly and securely close for pretty much
anything just two companies based in China and Japan control more than half
the world’s super supply but there is a factory that produced some right here
in the UK to find out how I’m heading to zip X in Leicester where they make
zips of all sizes from 4 centimetres for trousers to a whopping 65 metres for
banners and flags today managing director Neil Cockerill is showing me how
they make 15 centimetre long plastic zips for workwear how on earth do you
begin to make a zip which is acetyl Polly but looks like pudding rice what is
acetyl politician plastic beaded belt into the injection moulding and that’ll
form the chief of the zip so you call those individual plastic components teeth
for my bat A500 zips I’m adding just 20 grammes of black pellets to 1K of
white to make the perfect grey teeth that will make me take the beads get a
good mix and now all I need to do is sit up this ladder more that into that
perfect next into the other end of the injection moulding machine we
carefully thread of 1800 metre long piece of nylon edging known as tape that
will form the outside of the zips alright in there underneath the sensor Oh no
there’s a bit underneath the lifting home through the gap and over the rollers
oh God it’s so fiddly now if it took this long normally would you be out of
business though but you’d be shocked all right the injection moulding
machine is filled with plastic and laced with the tape let's make some teeth
novel down nothing is going down Full Auto and start the mixed beads are
melted at 200°C and injected into the mould at 123 kilos of force per square
centimetre this bonds them to the nylon forming 45 five millimetre long
plastic teeth along A-15 centimetres section of tape so that's the beginning
of it I am really and look at that how is that machine got these teeny tiny
little plastic teeth on to this material well OK there we go I say OK so you’ve
got the fabric along here molten plastic fills up all the individual teeth top
and bottom and then it pops out and you’ve got this that’s correct at the
moment I can’t connect them so obviously this is not yet a working zip dog
no new slider missing alloys slider is attached by hand by skilled workers like
Sarah Martin align top stops up right there yeah so I’m lining them up so
each little tooth can grab onto the other tooth oh come on people found
someone to dance with oh nice it’s good finally using the same injection
moulding process as the teeth a bottom stop is added to prevent the slider
coming off and my zip is done there we go the finished zips are quality
checked and packaged up ready to be sewn into all sorts of clothing add like
so much today I’ve learnt about sliders pullers teeth bottom stops but did
you also know that the reason it’s called as it is because of this back in Wales
I’ve got my 6 cut out pairs of jeans and I’m heading to the assembly line the
beating heart of the factory where a team of highly skilled specialist sewers
work on different stages of the process the first step of our genes jigsaw is to
attach the two yoke panels to the back with 20 years and more than 10,000
hours of experience Amanda Humphrey is what’s known as a Grand Master
so who better to show me how our genes are made right are you gonna show
me out it's actually show yes this twin needle chainstitch machine uses
needle side by side to produce a series of loop stitches that former chain like
pattern at full speed it can so 3500 stitches every minute trigon talk me
through it back up to the fold screws that one in so the joke goes under and
this when I go down to meet it and that goes almost under it yeah you slide
them up to the needle put down Amanda uses a foot pedal to control the
machine 51st and like a cars accelerated the harder she presses the faster it
goes keep your finger on the fold and that went over the top good great do
you wanna go OK I wouldn’t wanna go I’ll see I’m not gonna be very quick
The idea here is to attach the yoke to the top of the leg panel in one nice
clean motion now so this phone home now perfect yeah I think you might be
humouring me there Amanda I don’t actually think I can do this so that
doesn’t even fit the panel that looks alright to me it’s supposed to fit the
panel oh I see have a good season do you look at people sheets sometimes
yeah I would you would you look at what what what potentially draws your
eye back pockets so hang on you’re out there looking at people’s bottoms
but really you look back but yeah that’s my excuse Speaking of which that’s
exactly what our genes are missing the back pockets case so mark the
pockets up positioner then we last stitch the top back stick ship the use of
golden coloured thread phonetics is attributed to Levi Strauss who install
originally matched it to the copper coloured rivets on his jeans but I like the
early thread the stuff Amanda’s using as a special polyester core to give it
extra strength there we are from different bits of material to the backs of the
jeans there you go should fit in that nice and snug I think definitely with the
back of my jeans complete it's time to start on the front a 27 stage process
on one selling station the pockets are added to the front leg panels and on
another a very important part any jeans the fly which is being expertly
crafted by factory manager elian Evans there’s three pockets I go on to form
your fly area clacket slack it yes we mark them there so there’s three button
holes my class so you bring down the lever on your press oh wow the stitch
on these is holder keyhole button see why it’s called a keyhole code this
clever machine first shows the shape of the keyhole using a zigzag stitch
only then does it cut out the whole do you put the stitching in first before the
whole why not put the whole in and then stick around the whole we do the
stitching first ‘cause if they’re stitching is not correct then you can pick it to
make it correct but if you put the whole first then you can’t repair it 196
hours and 34 minutes into production our genes are really coming together
next the fly is attached and then the two front leg panels are sewn together
so Greg got you the front panel finished beautiful stuff so we’ve got the back
and now the job is to put the two panels together the front and the back so
start forming April aerogenes come on it to prevent that in from frying the
inside of the leg panels are sewn together with five separate threats using an
overlock stitch a combination of a chain stitch at’s exec simultaneously this
overlocker machine trims the edge of the material to remove any loose
threads next it’s over to Sandra to join the outside edges is that it and there
we have an inside out but a complete set trousers right yeah who would
have ever imagined so much went into making a pair of jeans with the
sewing done it’s time for some hardware a specialist machine is used to
attach 117 millimetre copper button 214 millimetre copper button add 1
enamel button with the company’s logo then it’s time for perhaps the most
iconic feature of any pair of jeans the rivets and ours has seven six on the
front and one on the back the management team so you make holes first
before you put the rivets through yeah because the rivers might bend if go
thicker fabric ‘cause you got 2 bits of denim overlap yeah plus double double
stitch the original purpose of these projects in the 19th century was to
reinforce the genes in areas susceptible to repping thanks to modern
stitching techniques rivets are no longer structurally integral but remain as a
defining feature of almost all genes so they’re all done now job well done the
change we make an error pretty much leaving this factory au naturale but
many of the genes we buy the UK or what’s known as distressed
stonewashed ribs or faded cherries finding out how a perfectly good pair of
jeans are ruined no matter how fashionably worn and torn your new jeans
are they almost all start the same way in that killer and deep blue so how do
you get from this pristine pair to this a pair that looks like it's had lots of
trendy wearing tear to find out how new environmentally friendly methods
are distressing denim known as finishing I’ve come to denim manufacturer
isko pyro let’s make some jeans to meet head of research and development
Ivan manzaneda so how do we get from these genes that are fresh brand
new to something that looks like this vintage E the kind of genes my mum
hates without having to wear them for 20 years while the first step we
utilised the government starting on a computer designer Jack gold create a
digital image of brand new jeans which overlays with the features of a
vintage pair OK so I can see here that there’s this crease when someone’s
bent over they’ve scrunched up their legs what are these called and this is
the whiskers whiskers jeans have whiskers like at the traditional way to
create whiskers is to remove the indigo dye from the surface by sanding the
jeans by hand a technique called abrasion or by the use of harsh chemicals
here they use technology to recreate the same effect so once we’ve got that
really unique pattern what happens next we think that bad and then we go to
the later you have a laser yeah let’s go and see the laser definitely using a
laser on jeans seems more James Bond than Bond Street so we take the
pattern we put in the laser computer that means the laser knows exactly
where to go amazing it’s like a map OK Are you ready Ivan and ruin let’s
laser something 321 Oh my goodness which cost what is going on smoking I
was completely changed colour a 450 Watt laser heats the indigo dye in the
fabric to 600°C evaporating it in a process called sublimation revealing the
undyed cotton beneath the effects of years of where are created in seconds
it’s just like that it’s done done that was incredible I can see they’ve got
whiskers now yeah they definitely look more G more lived in but they’re not
quite there yet next I’m creating texture on my jeans with the help of head of
development Melissa Clement So what are these amazing machines doing
they look like enormous washing machines they are here to replicate a
stonewash so traditionally how you would get stonewashed marbled effect
jeans is we would actually use stones so they would be punished stone stone
wash jeans are made by washing them with stone yeah how do you get
stonewashed effect without stones we use a non hazardous chemical it
reacts without indigo and it creates a high and low effect so it it’s got more
texture it looks a bit sorting pepper which is an industry term but sort of
pepper look to your jeans to create the salt and pepper stonewashed texture
my jeans tumble in the machine for 15 minutes while the top secret chemical
goes to work this system requires just 20% of the water used by the
traditional pumice stone method so I get to look cool without hurting
environment with less impact on the device I’m looking forward Samantha
finally to give my jeans maximum distress they’re getting what’s called an
authentic vintage finish traditionally this would have been achieved by
washing them over and over a huge waste of water in the new improved
method that tumbled for just a few minutes in a gas called ozone I’m
opening the Hatch in there go right OK can I pass it Yep ozone is a gas
composed of three oxygen molecules it’s best known for being found in the
earth stratosphere which philtres the sun’s ultraviolet radiation but inside
this machine it’s used to breakdown the molecular bonds of the indigo dye
bleaching the denim you have absolutely nailed it you’ve got the
stonewashed affect you’ve got the whiskers and this lovely fading which
makes it look like I’ve had these jeans for 20 years perfectly aged brand new
vintage jeans in just four hours and I can see this technology really catching
on because it turns out you can laser well pretty much anything in Wales my
untreated raw denim jeans are finished cracking job so I’m heading to the
dispatch department Jack gillum is the man in charge of making sure your
handcrafted jeans arrived safe and secure I wanted to ask you this right
because I know the meal we visited is trying to reduce its impact on the
environment what about you guys so one of the most important things we do
here is we have repairs for life scheme so it’s free repairs for life and do any
repairs at all on them had nice splitting open buttons popping off anything
and I just help prolong the life of the genes stops from ending up in landfill
and things like that I finished jeans and packaged and social to remove the
need for plastic tape and they're ready to go OK great yeah just put them in
the Charlie here for me please and then if you just wear them out to the front
to dispatch and we can get them on their way really the focus Jack one day 7
hours and 32 minutes since we started to process the cotton in Italy we
finally have finished jeans from the factory in cardigan they zipped to
customers right across the UK and don’t tell him lovers as far away as the
USA and Japan many of us wear a pair of jeans every single day but I’ve
never given a fault to where they start out all the craftsmanship that goes
into such an iconic piece of clothing an what an incredible journey from
cotton fields all over the globe to a denim mill in Italy and and artizan jeans
factory in Wales amazing to think that from simple workwear they became
one of the most popular items of clothing in the whole world factory’s come a
long way from its first early assembly lines but how do we get from there to
here explore the history and the future of the factory on an interactive
timeline go to [Link]