Denim was originally worn by cattle ranchers and people who worked in mines, being a tough fabric that can withstand wear and tear. But this rough and tough fabric has now become a symbol of fashion.
One of the primary and early types of denim fabric is “Selvedge denim”. It is differentiated from the rest of the denim fabrics on the basis of its fabric edges structure. Historically the old shuttle looms were used to produce this fabric, having a coloured thread running along the fabric edges. The unique edges help the material avoid unravelling during usage.
Initially, denim production is believed to have started in France. The residents of the city Nimes of in France were trying to replicate an Italian fabric, which resulted in the development of a new fabric called “serge de Nimes”. Over time, this name changed to the word “denim”.
The denim jeans were initially made by a tailor called Jacob Davies. He purchased the denim fabric from Levi Strauss & Co. and stitched it into pants. He used metallic rivets to give support to the garment and impart strength. The pair of pants made of denim fabric immediately got popular among the men doing tough physical work in the American West. It was preferred for rough outdoor work until the sixties, when it found its way into the fashion industry. Nowadays, jeans have become a staple product and part of almost every person’s wardrobe.
Selvedge denim fabric is basically produced on old shuttle looms, which give it the identity for which it is known. The most widely used loom types currently are shuttleless looms and air-jet looms. In the last few decades, the industrial production of denim has shifted to countries that offer cheaper labour. Countries like China, Pakistan, Turkey and India are the significant producers of denim fabric today.
The name selvedge is derived from “self-edge,” which points toward the special finished edges of the fabric made on old shuttle looms. These edges have a coloured thread running in the middle, which adds to its unique look. The purpose of these finished edges is to avoid unravelling.
Selvedge denim is made on old fashioned shuttle looms, which had been used from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The shuttle looms have a shuttle that carries a weft yarn across the width of the warp yarn sheet to produce fabric. Once the weft was inserted, it was beaten with a comb-like reed to make the inserted weft part of the fabric. The edges of the inserted weft are not left hanging loose; rather, these are woven into dense stripes on both ends of the fabric width, resulting in the production of selvedges (self-edges). A coloured thread is inserted into the selvedge for giving it a unique look.
But this process was slow and resulted in a smaller production. With industrial progress, more sophisticated and economically feasible machinery was invented; hence the shuttle looms were replaced gradually with high-speed shuttleless looms. The shuttleless or projectile looms boosted denim production significantly to overcome the ever-growing demand from consumers. But these high speed looms weaved denim fabric which had unfinished edges leading to ravelling, something that was being previously addressed by shuttle looms.
Fabric rolls made of selvedge denim are narrow and produce less wastage during production. The denim fabric is cut with the help of cutters into the jeans sizes, and the selvedges are kept on the denim outseam with the advantage of no unravelling.
The composition of the denim fabric is most of the time 100% cotton, with the warp yarns dyed with indigo dyes giving it a bluish shade, while the horizontal weft yarns usually have the natural white colour. Nowadays, fabric of different compositions are being manufactured, ranging from natural fibres like cotton to regenerated fibres like viscose, bamboo etc.
Following are some significant differences between the two types:
Selvedge denim jeans are usually more expensive when compared to the non-selvedge denim pair of pants, and the reason is their cost of production. The selvedge denim takes a much longer time to produce the same quantity of fabric that a projectile loom can make 5 to 10 times faster. It also comes with a higher maintenance and labour cost for the old looms.
Regarding the comparison on behalf of the quality, selvedge denim is ranked higher due to the characteristics of better fading than non-selvedge denim. This is due to the advantage of a slow pace of production as the loom exerts less pressure on the yarn, and so a relatively uneven yarn can also run on the shuttle loom, adding to the texture of the denim fabric and the subsequent shading effects.
Some of the popular uses of selvedge denim are below:
The care for the selvedge denim must include the following essential steps:
Washing produces fades throughout the selvedge denim life cycle, but subsequent washes up to a certain limit will result finally in a consistent colour which will only slightly fade over time.
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