In the wake of the recent World Health Day, the Clean Clothes Campaign has called to put a worldwide stop to sandblasting in the production of jeans. The organization has fought for the awareness and understanding of this deadly process since autumn of 2010. You can read what we had to say about it here.

Sandblasting gives a finished pair of jeans that fashionable “used look”. Worn out areas lend the visual feel of a previous (and perhaps more adventurous) life to what is really a brand new garment. The workers involved in this process are exposed to extremely fine dust and fall ill alarmingly quickly, victims of deadly silicosis. Thousands suffer from this dangerous lung disease in production countries like Turkey, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh or Egypt.

Unbelievable, isn’t it? We run around in cool and sexily frayed attire while, on the other side of the world, the people who made them are dying because of it. Since the CCC’s outcry against sandblasting, leading companies have stopped using the dangerous process, searching for viable alternatives instead.

At hessnatur, we create the same effect by washing, or rather washing-out, our jeans with enzymes. It’s not only effective, but also extracts neither a toll from the environment, nor from human lives. It works. And that leads me to ask the question, why is it taking so long for a universal ban?

At the end of the day, we consumers decide. We cast our vote with every purchase. I cast my vote for fair working conditions and a healthy working environment. How about you?

After meeting the people who sewed the individual parts of my jeans together, I wanted to find out what gave my jeans their very particular used look.  “Destroy” is a good description for the used-look. A bit strange that workers have to destroy my jeans to make them fashionable.

First, the management of the factory showed me the laser department. Many of the jeans had straps between the legs, at the hips and the backside. They are actually lasered into the denim. The next thing they did was a bit of a surprise. They asked to take my photo.  They transferred the photo to the computer which navigates the laser machines. And there I was: lasered into a piece of denim. On the wall were photos of Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie, also lasered into their jeans.  My photo probably won’t get as much attention as theirs – but it’s nice to see myself in such beautiful company!

Next, the lasered jeans go to the washing department.  They put them together with little white stones into huge washing machines. This method is called stone-washing. Because of the stones, the jeans whiten up a bit. That’s it – my used look! A simple but ingenius way to produce a good looking used-look without sandblasting. Sandblasting and its disastrous human and environmental side effects was already discussed in one of our last blog posts. It’s great to know that jeans can be fashionable without being harmful.

A current trend is destroyed jeans with holes. So in the next step workers destroyed the jeans further by adding holes into the denim. With a small grinding machine and sandpaper, women and men added tears and holes to newly made jeans. All workers wear protective clothing and breathing masks during this process, so that there is no danger to their health.

A very hot but satisfactory day came to an end. It was a very illuminating journey. I’ll keep my jeans forever – which in my fashion language means as long as possible.  What’s even more important than what they look like is how they’re made.  Wearing hessnatur jeans I can feel good and look good at the same time. Do you know the story of your jeans?

Vintage. Antique. Distressed. Used. I’m not talking about old furniture. I’m talking about bluejeans. “Distressed” is that wornout look so popular in today’s jeans. Distressed is also what I was after reading an article in the “Tagesspiegel” (a Berlin- based newspaper) about how jeans with this wornout look are killing young men in Istanbul.

I’ll sum up the article, to give you an idea of what’s bothering me.  In Turkey, young men – many just 13 or 14 year old boys — come from the remote countryside, mostly from East Anatolia, to work in the cities. Poverty draws with the promise of “work and bread”. In cellar sweatshops, they work with the “Rodeo”, the sand blaster used to give jeans their aged appearance. A cheap painter’s mask is all that protects them from a process which, in first world counties, requires a breathing apparatus with an external oxygen supply.

At the ripe old age of 20 or so, the young men are sent back home to their villages to die of a disease called silicosis. An occupational disease usually associated with miners, silicosis is incurable. Just a few months of breathing the silica dust produced by the Rodeos is enough to be fatal. Dying of this disease means dying of slow suffocation.

Up to 10,000 boys and young men have worked with Rodeos over the last twenty years in Turkey. The article says that textile exports from Turkey account for more than 10 billion Euros per year. Protesters in Turkey accuse the ministry of labor of tolerating these practices and suspect that big, brand name jeans companies at least know about it. I’d like to see some names, please.

My jeans from hessnatur are washed with enzymes and pumice to create the same effect, which harms neither the environment, nor young men in Istanbul.

As consumers, we have the power to influence, if not dictate, the production of the goods that we consume. But we need more information, especially when stories like this come out. We should be more aware about how textiles are produced worldwide, not just jeans.