In a world of excess, MUD Jeans wants to bring things back to the basics. Therefore, the world’s first circular denim brand has launched its Undyed Denim collection, meaning jeans that completely skip the indigo dyeing process. This is a rather revolutionary way of making jeans.
This capsule collection, made in existing styles, comes to life by a mix of recycled denim and organic cotton. By skipping the dyeing and washing process completely there are huge savings on water consumption and CO2, even compared to the brand’s existing very sustainable dyed jeans.
Eliminating harmful processes
Did you know that the dyeing and washing process is one of the most harmful contributors during the production of conventional jeans, and as a result, often causes pollution in the surrounding areas of the factories? This is why Mud Jeans is already using Cradle2 Cradle Indigo Dye, and has eliminated harmful processes such as hand-scraping, PP- spray and stone wash in its regular jeans production.
Now MUD Jeans has taken this a step further. By using the ‘naked’ fabric it saves 74% CO2 and uses 93% less water compared to the industry standard. To produce one pair of MUD Jeans, only 581 litres of water is used, compared to an industry standard of 7,000 litres! So, your MUD jeans save 6,419 litres of water. This is made possible by the water recycling plants and innovative washing techniques at the brand’s factories.
So, if dyes are not used, how does the signature light blue, gray colour of the jeans come to be? This unique effect happens when a mix of recycled old jeans and virgin organic cotton are combined.
“The nice thing is that the trends of the past years are reflected in the jeans. Most old, recycled jeans were blue, the new cotton is white, hence this mixed denim colour,” says Dion Vijgeboom, Denim Innovator, MUD Jeans. Currently the company is using 40% recycled cotton to produce its jeans, however its vision is 100%.
MUD Jeans sources its Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified cotton from Mumbai, India.
MUD Jeans has already turned 20,000 jeans into new denim. With its take-back scheme, it collects jeans that consist of more than 96% cotton. In collaboration with the denim experts at Recover and Tijedos Royo in Valencia, new denim fabrics are made, containing 40% post-consumer recycled cotton. The company’s goal is to design the first jeans made from 100% post-consumer recycled cotton!
The MUD Jeans Story
It all started in 2012 when Bert van Son founded MUD Jeans. With over 30 years’ experience in the fashion industry he has seen it all. He witnessed that life for factory workers is extremely demanding, and that the endless demands for material, due to exploded production, are ruining our planet. He wanted to do things differently.
Why jeans? Well, jeans are one of the most polluting items in fashion. Using 7.000 litres of water and nasty chemicals. With over 200.000 million jeans being sold yearly, the impact of recycling jeans and using organic cotton can be huge.
Bert believes that having fun without destroying the earth and its resources is possible. Together with his team, Bert transformed MUD Jeans into an exemplary circular fashion company, introducing the pioneering Lease a jeans model in 2013 and consistently putting the circular economy principles into practice.
In 2018 MUD Jeans obtained the Nordic Swan Ecolabel certificate for its products. This certificate confirms that the brand only uses non-harmful, biodegradable chemicals. The brand has also eliminated the use of PP spray and stone washing in all MUD Jeans production. Instead it uses innovative techniques such as lasering and ozoning in order to achieve a similar effect. These techniques are not only better for the environment but also for the health of the workers in its factories.
Source: mudjeans.eu
