WASHING WITHOUT WATER

Known for the quality of its jeans range and unique faded clothing, this season Japan Rags has focused on sustainable development with the name JAPAN Rags ZERO. It is not commonly known, but jean fading is not a good thing for the environment. The permanganate used for this effect and the amount of water (100L/jean approximately) required are currently so far from most people’s ecological concerns even though jean consumption has doubled in the last 10 years!

Japan Rags have become one of the first to react in its attempts to lessen the impact on the environment. Using its new technique, Japan Rags is able to create the same products but with a whole new vision. This principle is a very simple one: injected into the drum, the ozone gaz produces the same effect on the denim dye as the sun does; it creates discoloration and an impression of natural ageing throughout its range. Water is no longer needed to get a perfect fading.

How does it work?

This fading technology is revolutionising the jeans sector, but also the textile industry as a whole. It relies on a natural process of oxygen enrichment. A machine sucks in filtered air from the environment, and separates the essential components from the atmosphere, which purifies and enriches the oxygen (O2).

This purifies and enriches the oxygen (O₂). The O₂ molecule is converted into O₃ (ozone). The resulting ozone is injected into the drum that contains the jeans. The ozone naturally ages the jean fabric in the same way as sunlight, bleaching it.

At the end of the fading cycle, the ozone is sucked out of the drum, remixed with the atmospheric components to become oxygen before being released into the air once again.

Ozone fading is a natural non-polluting treatment, which considerably reduces the energy necessary to fade jeans.