What we learnt about denim
In first week of our project we get familiar with jeans and the fabric: denim.
Origin:
This blog will show the testing results of the fabric denim. Jeans are made a fabric called denim. We all have a pair of jeans in our closets right? The Dutch are having the most of all, an average Dutchie has 5 pairs of jeans in her closet. They have famous brands, like G-star and Denham. But the history goes back to some other countries.
The fabric comes from Nîmes, France. The word “Denim” is deduced from this name: De Nîmes. They word “jeans” is deduced from the colour of the wrap threads. The fabric is woven with a wrap which is indigo coloured and the threads of the weft are white coloured. The blue paint is originally from Genoa, Italy. But in French, it is called “bleu de Gênes”. That is why we call it “blue jeans” or “jeans”.
But the jeans itself was designed in America. We all know the brand Levi’s right? Mister Levi Strauss moved to San Francisco in 1853 and opened a “dry-good” store where he sold trousers made of a denim. Because the pants were so strong they were loved by miners. In 1872 Strauss received a letter from Jacob Davis, a tailor. He suggested the idea to give the pants more strength by adding rivets, spikes, at the corners of the pockets of the pants. And so the jeans, which we are still wearing so many years later, comes into being.
Quality:
The jeans we have chosen is made of 80% cotton, 18% polyester and 2% elastane. It is a lightweight stretchable denim which is comfortable to wear. It is a 2/1 right handed twill. The weight of the denim is 9,90 oz/yd2 and 338 g/m2.
Color fastness to rubbing (DS/EN ISO 105-X12:2002)
To make sure the fabric does not rub-off on other fabrics we test them by rubbing a cotton piece of fabric to our denim ten times. First, both are dry, second the cotton piece is made wet by doubling its weight with demineralized water.
On the dry fabric, we see a rub-off factor of 4/5, at the wet we see a factor of 1/2.
We see a rub-off at the wet jeans from 1/2 which is bad. We are not going to purchase this denim for our design.
Dry color fastness to rubbing
Grade: 4/5
Wet color fastness to rubbing
Grade 1/2
Colour fastness to washing (DS/EN ISO 105-C06:2010)
We were testing the color fastness by washing a piece of denim with a white piece of multifiber. This is a piece of fabric made out of six different fabrics: acetate, bleached cotton, polyamide, polyester, polyacrylic and wool. By sewing the denim on the multifiber you can see on which material it rubs-off. The piece of denim was washed at 40 degrees for 30 minutes.
We used a detergent solution dissolving 4g ECE detergent in 1 liter of demineralized water. After this solution was warmed up to 40 degrees we put 150 ml each in two metal containers together with the fabric and 10 steel balls. One container contains the denim stitched to the multifiber, the other container only contains the multifiber.
After 30 minutes of washing and drying, we compared the colors.
Two of the six fabrics were changed but not dramatically, maximum 4/5. The rest did not change.
The denim itself wasn’t changed.
Multifiber DW and a grade:
Acetate 5
Bleached Cotton 4
Polyamide 5
Polyester 5
Polyacrylic 4/5
Wool 5
Color change 5
Conclusion:
By using grades 1-5,5 is the best, this piece of fabric came out pretty well. Unfortunately, the wet color fastness to rubbing was bad with a score of 1/2. This is why we should consider buying this fabric.
We also have learned to tell the difference between the three types of regular denim structures 3/1RHT,2/1RHT and 3/1BT - only by using visual assessment
