Why Denim is Hot

why denim is hot

Although jeans have been around for decades, they’re probably more popular today than ever before. Most people own at least one pair.

Why Denim is Hot

Although jeans have been around for decades, they’re probably more popular today than ever before. Most people own at least one pair. And some people wear them every day. But while you can still by classic-look jeans, they are now a constantly evolving product, with different silhouettes, dyes, washes, and finishes setting the mood each season. As you’ll have noticed, to help individualize their brand, denim designers will also decorate their jeans (especially the back pockets) in a variety of ways, including with chunky embroidery, light stitching, and print.

The denim market has also changed, from one dominated by Levis a couple of decades ago, to one that is increasingly populated by hip new designers such as Antik Denim, Iron Army, Plush, Level 99, Privacywear, Citizens of Humanity, and Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier. And while denim may seem a difficult market to break into, many of today’s successful designers started with small runs of jeans, and later ventured out into denim skirts, shorts, and even T-shirts and other non-denim apparel. Iron Army began with two friends in Alberta, Canada, who produced small quantities with a local manufacturer. Today they’re located in downtown Los Angeles. Red Engine Jeans – one of the best known of the quality denim companies – was started in 1999, with the owners then operating out of their garage. Today they have 600 stores across the U.S., and are sold in stores across the globe.

One of the hottest new denim companies is Antik Denim. Their jeans are worn by worn by celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Cameron Diaz, Ashlee Simpson, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Jennifer Lopez. As with all denim designers that have made a name for themselves, their denims range from 1970s influenced ‘skinny’ jeans to boot cut, wide leg, flared jeans, and denim skirts. Antik Denim individually hand decorates each pair of jeans they produce, and, like other denim designers, uses various washes and finishing techniques to give them a distinctive ‘look’.

To enable designers to design for today’s denim market, Harper Arrington researched denim wash companies across the globe, and created the Denim Wash Factory. “We all know that denim is hot right now,” Jay Arrington says, “and wash treatments are just as hot the two are really inseparable. That is the main reason why we developed digital washing techniques for fashion designers using Digital Fashion Pro when designing denim. With these new techniques the designers can truly express their vision.”

The Denim Wash Factory works with the Digital Fashion Pro software (which you can find out about here: www.DigitalFashionPro.com) and gives designers the tools to design and illustrate jeans, denim skirts, and other denim products with designer abrasions, sand blasting, potassium wash, whiskers, bleach spots, and other finishes used commercially today. This level of detail and realism not only helps fashion designers see how the finished product will look, but shows denim wash companies exactly how to apply finishes.

And the Denim Wash Factory CD also comes with a 2 hour step-by-step video to take you through denim treatment techniques offered by denim wash companies, so you’ll have an insider’s understanding of the industry.