Clearly I'm obsessed with denim. Thursday is denim day in WWD-however, for me, every day is denim day. They published a helpful glossary of terms I am happy to reprint here:
Acid Wash: A technique for washing jeans popular in the Eighties. Created by using pumice stones soaked in various chemicals in the stonewashing process. Also known as marble wash, moon wash and snow wash. The visual effect is mottled and uneven.
Antiquing: A manufacturing process that gives apparel a worn, broken-in look. Such processes include stonewashing, hand-sanding, sandblasting and grinding.
Bar-tacks: The closely spaced stitches that connect to form a band or bar to reinforce stress points on jeans, such as pocket openings, belt loops, seams and buttonholes.
Broken Twill: Denim weaves that combine a left-hand twill with a right-hand twill so that the twill line reverses every two warp ends. This breaking of the continuous twill line reduces the natural torque that is characteristic of regular twill weaves. This balance eliminates leg twist due to fabric torque, a common problem in jeans.
Bull Denim: Piece-dyed cotton twill made from coarse yarns to resemble denim; however, the warp yarns are not dyed with indigo before weaving.
Capri Pants: Three-quarter-length pants, typically with a short slit on the outside of the leg. The style was originally worn in the Fifties, and revived after 2000. The name is derived from the Italian island resort of Capri, where the style first became popular.
Chambray: A plain weave fabric with an indigo warp and natural weft yarn, often made in lighter weights for shirting.
Cowboy Cut: A style of jeans featuring high back pockets, a tapered leg from knee to bottom to fit over boots, a wide space between front belt loops to accommodate a wider belt and heavy buckle, smooth round rivets and extra room in the seat and thigh to make riding easier and more comfortable.
Crosshatch: An effect in the denim weave created by using uneven yarn in the weft direction, combined with uneven yarns in the warp direction.
Denim: Traditionally a cotton fabric made of warp yarns dyed with indigo and woven with natural weft yarns in regular twill. One apocryphal story holds the word “denim” is a contraction for the French term “serge de Nîmes,” a twill fabric that was made in Nîmes, France. However, fashion historians in the U.S. and France call that story a myth, noting that the serge fabric in question was made of wool and bore little if any reference to the cotton fabric common today.
Dungaree: 1. A piece-dyed or solid-colored, yarn-dyed twill fabric used for pants or overalls. 2. Synonymous with denim. 3. The term for pants made from this fabric, derived from the Hindi word used to describe the trousers once worn by sailors from the Indian port of Dungri.
End: An individual warp yarn. Constructions are expressed as the number of ends and the number of picks.
Enzyme Washing: A process that uses cellulase enzyme to “stonewash” jeans. The enzyme eats away cotton, exposing the white core of the indigo-dyed yarn (see ring dyeing). It is often used in conjunction with pumice stone to enhance the stonewashed look.
Fabric Weight: A measure of the ounces per square yard of a fabric. Denim is typically woven in weights from 4 to 15 ounces per square yard.
Five-Pocket Jeans: A popular style of jeans in which there are two rear pockets, two front hip pockets and a coin pocket inside the right front pocket. What’s called a coin pocket today started out in the late 19th century as a place for miners to keep dry the matches they relied on to ignite their lamps.
Garment Dye: A dyeing process for intense saturation of color. Natural or even indigo-dyed jeans are dyed (or overdyed) a color in garment form at the laundry. A good indication that a pair of jeans has been garment-dyed is if the pocket linings and labels are dyed as well.
Hipster Jeans: A style of jeans that start about 10 centimeters below the navel.
Hand: Also called “hand feel.” The way a fabric feels to the touch. For example, left-hand twill might feel softer than right-hand twill, and ring-spun denim might feel softer and smoother than open-end denim.
Hand-sanding: Vintage jeans show wear patterns that occur naturally. “Whiskers,” “chevrons,” and “damage” refer to local areas of abrasion that form on the garment after long periods of wear. Hand-sanding is often used to replicate these characteristics on new jeans.
Indigo: Once harvested from plants, most indigo is now synthesized from chemicals. It is used to dye various cellulose-based fibers. Pure indigo can produce deep, brilliant blues that cannot be duplicated with any other dye; it often lends a slightly red cast to the fibers.
Inseam: The seam that runs vertically down the inside of a pant leg.
Jeans: 1. A durable fabric made of carded yarns, primarily of cotton or cotton blend, in a twill weave. It may be bleached, dyed solid colors or printed. 2. The modern-day term that refers to a style of pants with five pockets and that may be made from a wide range of fabrics, including corduroy, twills or bull denim. Derived from the French word “genes” that was used to describe the pants once worn by sailors from Genoa.
Laundry: A manufacturing company that treats unwashed jeans through washing, stonewashing, sandblasting, hand-sanding or garment dyeing.
Left-Hand Twill: The weave of denim where the twill line rises to the left, usually resulting in a softer feel to the fabric after washing. Also know as “S” Twill.
Levi Strauss: Born as Loeb Strauss in Bavaria in 1829, the founder of the company that invented Levi’s jeans, and inventor of blue jeans.
Lycra: Invista’s trademark for spandex fiber; Invista, formerly the fiber unit of DuPont, is owned by Koch Industries.
Mercerization: An industrial process used on yarn or fabrics to increase the luster and dye affinity. On denim, the process is used to create a flat, smooth appearance.
Open-end Spinning: A process for making coarse yarns used in denim. It is faster and cheaper than ring spinning. Fibers are fed into a high-speed rotor shaped like a cup. The end of a yarn is placed inside and drawn out as the fibers accumulate on the “open end.” Open-end yarns are not as strong as ring-spun yarns of the same size, because some of the fibers do not lie parallel to the axis of the yarn.
Outseam: The seam that runs vertically down the outside of a pant leg.
Overall: A one-piece garment style with pants and a bib top and suspenders, traditionally made from denim or canvas and originally created for workwear.
Preshrunk: A term used to describe denim that has been pretreated so that the garment will shrink less than 3 percent in the laundering process.
Pumice Stones: Lightweight volcanic stones used for stonewashing garments. These “rocks” actually float on top of the water, wearing away during the stone-wash process and turning into a sand-like material.
Right-Hand Twill: The majority of denim is woven in right-hand twill, where the twill line rises to the right. Also known as “Z” twill.
Rigid Denim: Describes unwashed denim. Most denim garments are typically prewashed before going to retail.
Ring Dyeing: Refers to the lack of full penetration all the way through the yarn. For example, when a yarn has a “ring” of dyed fibers around a core of nearly white cotton, it is said to be “ring dyed.” This effect occurs naturally in the process of indigo dyeing. When abraded, either by normal wear or through a garment finishing technique, the white core becomes exposed and affects the overall color and appearance of the garment, giving denim a unique appearance that improves with age.
Ring Spinning: A process used to spin yarn, especially fine counts. Fibers are fed onto the end of the yarn while it is in the twisting zone, which consists of a ring, a ring traveler and a bobbin rotating at high speed. The yarn produced is more uneven than open-end yarn, but it is stronger and smoother to the touch because the fibers are more parallel. Because the yarns in denim are relatively coarse, open-end spinning provided a less expensive way to make yarns for denim. In the Seventies, a lot of ring spinning for denim was replaced due to the lower cost of open-end spinning.
Rivet: A metal accessory used in jeans both to reinforce stress points and for nonfunctional decoration.
“S” Twist: The direction in which the fibers in a yarn are twisted. Viewed from any angle, the twist direction is represented by the “S,” which shows the fibers having a slight angle rising to the left, whereas the typical direction of twist for denim yarns is the “Z” variety.
Sandblasting: A laundry process in which unwashed jeans are sprayed with sand or chemicals to give the jeans a worn appearance.
Sand Wash: A garment washing technique in which sand, or some other abrasive substance, is used in the wash bath. This treatment imparts a faded appearance and a soft hand.
Selvage: Originally known as a self-edge, the term used since the 14th century for a narrow, tightly woven band on either edge of fabric parallel to the warp that prevents fabric from raveling. Today, modern weaving machines produce wide fabric, and the weft yarn is cut on every pick, or “fill insertion.” This “fringe” selvage is not used as part of the jeans, but the selvage does prevent raveling as the fabric is processed and spread out for cutting. The selvage from antique narrow shuttle looms is formed as the shuttle passes back and forth during weaving. Since the yarn is not cut, the selvage is tightly bound and forms a clean edge. This type of selvage is durable and can be used as part of the jeans. Today, only the most premium jeans are made from “selvage denim.”
Slim-Leg Fit: A style of jeans in which the leg offers very little ease, and thus a hugging effect from the thigh to the knee.
Slub: A soft, thick nub in yarn that is either an imperfection, or intentionally spun to look irregular in shape. Slub yarns are typically regular in repeat and size.
Spandex: The generic name for man-made fibers derived from a resin called segmented polyurethane, best known for their stretch and recovery properties. (See Lycra, the trade name for Invista’s spandex.)
Stonewash: A technique by which fabrics or garments are treated to produce certain color and/or texture effects by tumbling them with pumice stones or other abrasives. Where the stones come into contact with the fabric, abrasion occurs and color is removed.
Twill: The diagonal lines formed by the weave.“S” twill, or left-hand twill, has the most defined twill line, because the twill lines are opposite the typical twist direction of the yarn. (See “Z” twist.)
Warp: The lengthwise, vertical yarns carried over and under the weft. Because they are subjected to more strain in the weaving process, warp yarns generally have more twist and are stronger than weft yarns.
Weaves: Warp and weft yarns are combined in different ways to produce different weave designs. These designs affect the appearance, feel, strength and durability of the denim. The simple warp face designs used in denim are designated by the number of weft yarns that the warp ends pass over, followed by the number of weft yarns they pass under. The most common weaves in denim are three over one (3/1 or 3 x 1), two over one (2/1 or 2 x 1), and three over one broken twill. The 3/1 and 2/1 come in either left- or right-hand direction. The most common design in denim is the 3/1 right-hand twill.
Weft: Also known as filling, the crosswise, selvage-to-selvage yarns in the weave. These yarns are subjected to less strain in the weaving process, and thus require less strength than warp yarns.
“Z” Twist: The direction the fibers in a yarn are twisted. Viewed from any angle, the twist direction is represented by the “Z,” which shows the fibers having a slight angle rising to the right. The typical direction of twist for denim yarns is “Z.”
