Wrangler’s Latest Project Could Change the Entire Denim Industry

Denim production is extremely bad for the environment, but Wrangler's clever solution could be a game-changer.

Whether you're a high-waist type of girl or more of loose-fit type, most everyone loves a good pair of jeans. Unfortunately, the denim production process is one of the biggest contributors to energy and water waste. But Wrangler found a way to substantially minimize the harmful environmental impact with its latest launch: Indigood.

Wrangler partnered with Texas Tech University and Tejidos Royo, a Spanish fabric mill, to completely revolutionize the way jeans are dyed — something that hasn't changed since the '70s.

The process to apply the blue dye that gives jeans their classic color is extremely wasteful.


Approximately 25,000 gallons of water are traditionally used while dyeing yarn. That doesn't even take into account the hundreds of gallons of water used in cotton production and denim finishing. But Wrangler's new Indigood collection, which will be available for purchase this fall, includes denim pieces that were dyed using a new foam that drastically reduces that number to just under 10 gallons of water.

So how exactly does it work? The game-changing indigo foam is applied to yarn in an oxygen-deprived tank. The simplified process requires less water and less machinery, so there's a substantial reduction in the amount of energy required to run the equipment, too.

The revolutionary foam dying technology has been used in the past, but Wrangler's the first brand to use the bubbly formula in the indigo dyeing process. And they don't want to be the only company using the much more sustainable solution. "We owe it, as an industry, to the entire world to help solve these issues," Roian Atwood, Senior Director of Global Sustainable Business at Wrangler, tells InStyle.com. "The more competitors that adopt the foam dye process — they're are basically signing up for the Indigood promise on their own terms, and they're essentially a part of this journey with us."


Credit: Instyle