After months of much testing to achieve the desired colour and texture after overdyeing, we chose the Tanuki Red Cast fabric. It is the ideal base fabric.
Quite often basic fabrics are used for overdye jeans, but that was not the case here. We started out from one of our favourite fabrics, not only as regards the brand but also all Japanese denim. It is a very special fabric, very hairy, with great texture and slub. The Tanuki team chose several jeans in Red Cast fabric and started to experiment. After many overdye tests we observed that not only did it perfectly capture the Akane, but after the whole overdye process the fabric became much softer, retaining its character but with a totally different result, much softer and comfortable and with a greater feeling of lightness and ease.
This Homura is a 16.5oz jean that when worn may feel like 13oz. It is so comfortable that, when worn, it feels like a stretch jean. But nothing could be further from the truth. As many of you know, Red Cast fabric is 100% cotton (Australian and Texas blend). These 16.5oz jeans seem far lighter than they actually are; they are also highly breathable, making them ideal for every month of the year. They’ll look great not only with boots in the colder months but also with your sneakers in warm weather. We have been testing our Homura jeans for several weeks in the heat of Madrid and can state that this is a great choice to wear throughout the year.
To obtain this result in terms of both colour and texture, this was the process followed:
- Before tinting with Akane, the fabric had to be softened so that it would properly absorb the pigments. To achieve this the Tanuki people did an enzyme wash that removes all the starch and significantly relaxes the fabric. Thanks to this, as we explained earlier, the denim feels very soft and much lighter than any other 16.5oz jean. This process takes a long time, since no chemical products are used to prevent damage to the cotton fibres.
- The jeans were shipped from the sewing factory to a dyeing workshop in a different place (still inside Okayama prefecture) to proceed with the overdye. Like with any other natural tint, Akane is not a strong dye, so a single soak is not enough. The jeans are hand-immersed one by one for a few hours in basins containing the Akane ferment. They are then rinsed in water and dried before repeating the process. In total, the process is repeated a few times for each pair of jeans. This involved a lot of time and dedication but resulted in beautiful variations and depth in the red hues. The result in the weft was a colour similar to a good red wine in tone and depth, and for its part the warp has a gorgeous deep indigo tone with natural reddish nuances that will fade to high contrast blue with red undertones.
This whole process was time-consuming and required hours of testing to achieve the perfect result.