Inside a Luxury Denim Factory

Glass Factory. Wash Italia. This is Dior. We have two archives in Wash Italia. So this is the vintage archive. We go twice a year, both to LA and Tokyo, for research. So yeah, this is the beginning.

Bene, sì, questa è stata veramente una storia che è nata nel tempo, dimostrando soprattutto lo stile di questi brand che siamo diventati un'azienda leader nei trattamenti. All'interno della nostra azienda abbiamo la quale è l'Art Director di tutte le sfilate di Diesel, quindi lavorando insieme riusciamo a fare capi che diventano unici. La personalizzazione, fare capi unici, rende lo stilista sempre molto contento.

Okay, so this is the fashion archive where we have all of the experiments we do in Wash Italia. So the different treatments we can do.

People don't understand that when it comes to treating denim, there's so much more than meets the eye. Like, you know, people think of like standard washing. Okay, it's a little bit faded, it has some distressing around the edges, but Oh, look at this.

Yeah, that's something crazy.

This is all coated.

Yeah, this is a Manopelle coating. We made this for Diesel, and the technique is— it's practically a print that we do on the denim and gives it this. We are specialized, of course, on the denim, and we have machines that are made for printing on denim. So a lot of the treatments are full-on prints that we need a specific press to do them. This is the peel-off. Which is more or less the same technique as the manopella we talked about, but gives this effect of peeling off, as the name says. So it has this sort of paperish effect.

You just like pull out 2 or 3 pieces that you think are insane. Just—

okay, these are some pieces I quickly selected. You can go through them. Okay, so this fabric already has a net underneath, let's say, that with the dévoré print we do here in wash, we can make drawings or distressed effects. This is another prototype we made for Ralph Lauren. It's a cracked print.

Ralph Lauren wanted something like this?

Yeah, exactly. This is for Ralph Lauren.

RRR?

Purple Label, actually. This is actually a prototype we made. Then from this concept, they developed on it and made a collection out of it. This is very interesting too.

This has like a Stone Island vibe to it almost.

Yeah, this was actually made for Diesel. This effect that is called gel. You can see also here, and this is also gel. You always gotta start from something, from an idea, and having this huge archives, we usually manage to combine different elements that then bring life to new ideas. So it can be a vintage piece that maybe gives us an idea for the laser, which is completely different. The next steps of course, is prototyping. Ciao! Okay, so this was an original blue denim which was then brought to white through the wash and then dyed black. So it's the color and then recolored, practically.

Oh, there's a mesh back.

Yeah, this is the same fabric we've seen before. It's the one with the net, exactly, that Diesel is using. We are the first washing company in Italy to have this machine to dye the indigo.

All right, let's go to the sample. Grazie mille, grazie mille. E questo rende questo lavoro abbastanza interessante e bello perché ti permette di sperimentare a 360 gradi.

Our motto is that we can make a work of art from a— it's in Italian, it makes more sense because the words—

In Italian, it's—

Yeah, un capo da lavoro diventa un capolavoro, which literally means a garment for work becomes a work of art. Well, at the moment he's just improvising, actually. He's freestyling all his years of experience.

When you're doing vintage washes like this, are you always doing it by hand, even for production? Like, this is done by hand for production?

Yes, it is always done by hand. So for the vintage washes, the base is scratching. You don't really learn how to do this in school, right?

Not really.

OK. OK. Grazie. So this is the first step of the prototyping. The second step is washing the jeans in the washing machines. The base is done before the washing. Sometimes they are washed and this treatment is redone. Yes, this is the main hall where, where I mean, we keep the inventory and where the productions arrive. Here you can see Chanel's latest jeans. This is a Manopelle shiny leather finish.

Now you're going to send it to the next factory, which will do all the finishing.

Exactly, where they're going to accessorize it with the buttons, tags. Here is the washing.

Washing.

So here is where we do the classic stone washes, enzymatic washes, also the dirtings for the jeans, oxidation, all the processes in, let's say, getting out the white. Of the jeans.

Gotcha.

These are new washing machines.

These are huge.

I was saying, these are—

these are all Tonello.

Yeah, this is our Tonello's new washing machines that have this new technique called no stone, which they're the first machines to do the stone wash without the use of the pumice stone. This is Dior. They're still wet. They're gonna now go on the dryer.

What is the benefit of not using stones?

So the main benefit of Not using stones is sustainable purpose. Pommestone, every 3, 4 washes, they have to be changed because denim bleeds and the blue of the denim makes the stones blue. So after some washes, you gotta replace them. Denim is indigo dyed, but in origin it's white. So what we're doing with the washes is getting out the white of the denims and making it look worn. These are the dryers that we use for sampling and prototyping.

Okay. So that's why they're smaller.

And also here, these are the machines that we use for the prototyping. Yeah, we call this oxidation because it's not an actual dirtying. It's not a dye, but it's what gives it that final vintage finish that makes it look worn, that it has been aged and oxidized. So exposed to the air, let's say.

So right now I see a picture of jeans that are posted onto the machine.

Yeah, exactly.

Is that what's in sampling?

Yes, should be what's inside. This is the jeans before they're neutralized. After the potassium spray. That is what adds up even more to the used effect of the denim. It erodes the fabric, let's say. This is Balenciaga's new couture collection. We're making the first samples here. And as you can see, this denim is lined with a sort of more, let's say, elegant fabric. This one you gotta try on. This is with the inserted pants.

What the fuck? I'll do the rest of the door like this. The rest of the door like this. What the fuck?

The factory has been really like playground. I managed to try out really every sort of treatment and wash. And now I'm starting to understand how to merge the elements to create my own type of style of washing and treating.

And now we're going to move into potassium spray. What it does is it takes color out of the denim. It acts as a bleach. After they've been potassium sprayed, they're left behind end result is going to be a sort of pinkish orangish color because that's how it comes out on denim. It's really the contrast, right? So if you think of the color wheel, what is the contrast color to blue? It's orange. So the blue comes out as an orange color. Notice how he's following the whiskering that he created the previous steps of the jeans. That's done on purpose because what they're trying to do here is emphasize the effects that were created in the last steps. All of that fraying that's been created since the thread is cotton, it's a white cotton underneath as opposed to denim, which is cotton that's been dyed within the It comes out as much heavier. The effect is much larger on that. In denim dyeing and washing, it's really a dance between the dyeing, the washing, the handwork. You're kind of just doing a balance of all these things in order to create a certain effect.

Can't really see the dyeing in the process, but we got this new dyeing machine that dyes natural indigo. We have to do high temperatures in the washing machines to make sure that all the shrinkage happens in the first stage of production. Production so that we can then calculate.

Is there anything here that was just dyed?

That was just dyed. Um, brown one? Uh, yes, this is fresh. This is a simple cold dye.

So these just came out of the dyeing machine?

Yes.

This is where all the drawing is taking place. These are like super industrial. And do you only have two drawing machines in the whole unit? Or you have more?

Uh, yes, for the dyeing, yes.

In one last effort, it goes to serigraphy, the screen printing, right? Let's go take a look.

Let's go. Siete sospettissimi.

In questo momento non importa la quantità, importa la qualità che fai. Abbiamo accettato ordini anche di 20 capi perché quei 20 capi vanno nelle 20 vetrine più belle del mondo.

What we're doing here with the laser is the vintage base treatment. Instead of the scratching, we can directly do it with the laser. It's a bit more precise, but the effect still is a little different from the regular scratching. From start to finish, this is the end result.

Yeah, so these have already been lasered, right?

Yeah, this have been lasered. They're gonna be washed now, so this is gonna be the end result after the wash. 5 minutes and we can come back here. But in the meanwhile, it's here, the laser archive. It's not far away. Here you can see all the different types of techniques we can do with this laser. This is a double-layered jeans, and practically what we do is that with the laser we get rid of the first layer to do the pattern. Here, this is a fabric similar to the one we've before, right?

The mesh.

Yeah, exactly, with the mesh.

It's done with lasering also.

Yeah, this has been coated with the Mylar and then lasered to, to achieve this drawing. This is also a Mylar that has been lasered to show the, the denim below it. Yeah, I just wanted to show you really quickly this, that are patches made with the laser. So on top of the— on top of the drawing, they're also cut with the laser.

So, and then they're sewn on.

Exactly. This is also made with the laser, so distressed lettering, also very interesting.

This is actually a really good reference even for clients. Over here we're able to see that based on a number, that is the intensity of the So 40 being the least intense in this scale, 45 a little bit more intense, we start to see some distressing.

Usually we manage to do a sample in 1 to 2 weeks.

And what about production?

Production could take up to a month for the most complicated treatments, but also there depends on the quantities and of course on the type treatment since we can do really any type of treatment.

So we are inside quality control right now. This is where they are trimming all my threads, verifying that everything is okay.

After the quality control we do, there is gonna be also a quality control they do, so we gotta be very careful because every damage or fail on the garments is— They look very, very closely.

What she's doing with the marker It's very, very fine-tuned details.

The marker is simply adjusting the tone of the denim. So in this case, she's—

It's blue ink.

Exactly, it's blue ink.

Over here, she's trimming loose threads, anything that might have happened during the washing or dyeing process.

3-kilo hoodie.

Why is this so heavy, bro? Holy shit.

This is 1.2 kilos per meter square.

Oh, this is—

Yeah, it had to be done. I know it's a crazy piece, not very wearable, but it had to exist, you know?

It had to exist.

The creative process also happens here. Not every washing treatment company can have the honor to say to collaborate with the designers.

So currently working on an LV damier print. I just want to show you the process behind screen printing because it's not just straight to production. It takes a few tests. This is the second one, much cleaner. So right now they're burning the screens. That's how you can actually create a screen that's capable of printing. By using light, you're able to pass it through the screen, which makes the mesh part of the screen more sensitive to the ink passing through and therefore allows screen printing to occur. Over here they're washing down the screens, which is what brings the actual burned screen to life. And over here they're storing screens. Since there are so few screens here, it leads me to believe that these are the screens mostly actively in production or always on call. What's sick with this factory, I'm noticing, is look at the size of the screens. They're fucking huge screens. The reason the screens are this big is because I'm guessing they're printing on the entire front of denim, whether it's jeans or denim jackets. So this is the peel-off process. I've never actually seen this done before. What they're doing is they're applying this fabric. What's this fabric made out of?

This is just a cotton. It's a jersey cotton.

Yeah, it's a jersey fabric, but then I guess it's the adhesive that they use that makes it special, right?

Yeah, exactly. They give it the vintage effect.

The way they get this cotton twill to adhere to the denim is using glue, but to make sure it really seals in, they actually use this machine right here where they put it down They close it, and this is a vacuum. It actually vacuums the cotton twill onto the denim with the adhesive applied so it really stays in place. And as a result, we get something that's not gonna move. It literally looks vacuum sealed. Over here we have this really, really large screen. This printing press is made for these exceptionally large screens. They're much larger than the traditional ones we saw in the other press. He sprayed down a coat of adhesive so that the denim would stay in place once it's put down, which is why he's pressing it down into the foam right now. The reason they use foam as a backing, it's much spongier on the print. It allows for the ink to seep in more deeply. So that's why they use a foam base. And for denim, that's a much better tactic, especially when you're working with a heavier denim by nature. So they're essentially gonna screen print an effect onto denim that's gonna look as if it was, you know, woven that way or lasered that way. But they're going to recreate it with ink. He's completed the test on the test fabric, which was just a base of denim. He's going to do the real thing. So he takes the jeans and puts them straight to curing. This machine is extremely hot, it's like an oven, and it's gonna dry off all the fresh ink that just went onto those jeans. Do I let them fall? Here's the end results. The jeans have been cured. My hands are about to fall off because these jeans are so hot.