Denim expert Piero Turk: ‘Nobody needs so many types of denim fabric’

Each season at the Amsterdam denim trade show Kingpins, thousands of new denim qualities are available to study, arranged in endless rows of jeans and swatches. Manufacturers effortlessly present 50 new developments. “It is actually nonsense,” Italian Piero Turk tells FashionUnited over the phone. He is speaking from his home and workplace in Italy; this time he did not attend the trade show in Amsterdam. “Nobody needs all those variations. They are not genuinely new or are far too eccentric for the average consumer. It is a complete waste of raw materials.”

Turk knows what he is talking about. He has worked as a denim designer for nearly every major denim brand since the 1980s and is now a regular fixture at Kingpins. For the trade show, he leads the ‘One Denim’ project, a quest for the perfect fabric that almost makes the event itself seem redundant.

One type of denim

The project was conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic and presented at the 2022 trade show. Since then, a One Denim collection has been presented at every October edition. The concept is simple: Turk is assigned a manufacturer and, using his expertise, gets to choose a fabric quality. “I always look for a fabric that is flexible,” he explains, “one that works for a wide leg and for a straight leg, for jeans, but also for a fashionable jacket or a skirt.” It is then up to the manufacturer to devise beautiful variations that showcase the versatility of the denim.

For the first edition, the Chinese manufacturer Prosperity Textile produced ten different versions of pockets from the same denim, each treated with a different wash. “We have gradually expanded the variation in styles,” continues Turk, “to show that you do not need new denims every season. With one good quality, you can get further than you might think. That is the concept of One Denim.”

The latest collaboration, presented in October, was with the Turkish denim supplier Kipas. Inspiration for the collection came from American sports, such as ice hockey and football. Turk chose a pure cotton fabric that feels softer due to a special treatment. The manufacturer used it to make jumpers and T-shirts in various shades of blue.

While Kipas performed all these treatments in its own factory, producing both fabrics and washes, the 2024 collaboration with the American company Cone Denim required a detour. The washes were done at Tonello in Italy. Turk: “Every time the process is different, depending on what the factory can do in-house.” In that sense, One Denim is also an investigation into where expertise still lies within the extensive denim supply chain.

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Chicken feathers

In his career, Turk has seen denim that he unhesitatingly describes as absurd: with chicken feathers in the warp or with so many holes it was more thread than fabric. Fabrics made from pineapple fibre, banana fibre and bamboo were touted as sustainable, although this is far from proven. “If you import that pineapple fibre from Central America to Turkey, how is that good for the climate? A Turkish factory using Turkish cotton seems more sustainable to me.”

He finds many of the sustainability claims circulating in the industry to be unbelievable. For instance, he saw a manufacturer promoting black denim as ‘waterlessly dyed’. “That is bullshit. Even if you use foam instead of a water tank with dyes, you need water to make that foam.” Other parties claim you can wash a pair of jeans with a single glass of water. “You can spray denim with a fine mist instead of fully submerging it, but for that you need ozone, which you then have to neutralise with water. It just does not add up.”

Waste

Even if it were true, manufacturers who fixate on such sustainability claims are missing the point, according to Turk. “If the end result is unwearable, what is the point?”

The waste in the industry is not just in the amount of water and chemicals required for the final product. It is also in the research phase needed to create all those new variants every season. “To develop a new denim, you have to invest a lot of money, energy and time. Sometimes the first test fails, then you have to do it again, and then again. Metres and metres of fabric are wasted in the process, for something that perhaps nobody is waiting for.”

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12.5 ounce

So what are the perfect jeans? Turk does not have to think long about it. “The simplest kind. 12.5 ounce denim with a visible twill (diagonal pattern in the weave) made from locally processed cotton.” He can appreciate hemp in the composition, provided it is grown locally, as the plant benefits soil life and the fabric is stronger than cotton. “But spinning and weaving hemp fibres also requires a lot of water, chemicals and energy,” Turk adds. “So it is not necessarily better.”

His biggest environmental concern for the coming years is stretch. Although natural materials with stretch are also coming onto the market, he mainly sees stretch denim with synthetic fibres that are still made from oil. “My dream is plastic-free denim.” The technology to make pure cotton more elastic is already advanced, thanks to innovative spinning processes. However, the fashion industry does not focus on it enough, even though European legislation aimed at circularity is pushing it in that direction. A fabric made from a single fibre type is much easier to recycle than a blend. “You cannot get super-stretch with these innovations, but you can get something comfortable that will last for years.”

The special washes that have filled Kingpins for seasons are also unnecessary, according to Turk. “Just give me unwashed denim.” You can still vary the yarn weight, weft density and dye intensity. That is more than enough.”

Ultimately, it is about the most wearable look, states Turk. A brand cannot go wrong with that. “You do not have to introduce new fabrics every season. If a solid quality does not take off, you just use it again in the next collection. Then you produce no waste, can reorder more easily, and do not waste precious production capacity.”

MSP

In addition to One Denim, Turk is also working on a similar project at Kingpins called ‘Most Sustainable Product’ (MSP). For this, he selects one quality from the collections of selected manufacturers each year and designs a denim line in consultation with them. For the upcoming Kingpins edition, the looks are inspired by iconic artists: Matisse, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo. He expresses pride in the message behind it: “Sustainability does not mean you are limited. You can work in an environmentally friendly way and make anything you want.”