japanese denim and twisted seams

[giantreptile]

i tend to find that japanese produced denim has a severe twisted seam, post wash. us made does this to a lesser degree, and italian even less. (eg., my sugarcane 101Bs are pretty twisted, my LVC '47s are a little, and helmut lang '9s not at all)

discuss.

[ringring]

The twill weave in denim makes the cloth prone to twisting with shrinkage. Shrinkage can be controlled in the mill by sanforizing and other stabilising techniques. (I believe Sanforizing is a trademarked method - rather like Goretex is a proprietary type of gas permeable cloth, there are other ways of controlling shrinkage that work similar to Sanforizing but circumvent the TM - just like there are other brands of 'Goretex-like' fabrics).

The ones that twist haven't be stabilised. The one's that don't, have. Simple as that.

It's not a ethnic thing

Edited by ringring on Sep 1, 2005 at 07:40 AM

[Geowu]

I think the anti-twist process is called skewing.

My guess would be: the ones without skewing and sanforizing twist a lot. The ones with skewing and without sanforizing twist a little. The ones with both methods almost don't twist. Is that correct?

Edited by Geowu on Sep 1, 2005 at 07:57 AM

[giantreptile]

now see, i thought sanforizing is more to protect the fade rather than the twisting. said sugarcanes are sanforized, but are pretty twisted (haven't been dried). maybe i just have a flawed pair, but i have two other japanese made jeans (jil sander and oki-ni levi's) that are pretty twisted.

[wild_whiskey]

Over time, all RHT and LHT jeans are going to twist, just like they will still shrink a little, even when sanforized. The twist will be almost unnoticeable. As far as I know there is no specific process manufacturers use to combat the twist (that doesn't involve the weave, i.e. Broken Twill), but because the twist is caused by biased shrinkage in the fabric, sanforizing (or other pre-shrinking methods) will minimize the twist as a byproduct of minimizing the shrinkage.

[Geowu]

Quote: As far as I know there is no specific process manufacturers use to combat the twist

I know there is a process, I think the name is skewing but not sure.

[ringring]

"i thought sanforizing is more to protect the fade rather than the twisting"

That's probably mercerising you're thinking of. Mercerising effects the colour. Sanforizing effects the shrinkage.