Mills Show Denim’s Softer Side for Spring/Summer 2025
After seasons of Y2K-inspired washes and heavyweight fabrics keying into durability, denim mills are showing a softer side for Spring/Summer 2025.
Though Covid-19’s impact on everyday life has waned, its effect on how consumers dress for comfort lingers. Calik Denim’s approach to versatile, laidback fashion includes soft handles, blends of cotton and Tencel and constructions allowing the wearer to “feel the summer breeze.” Fabrics span PFDs to rigid and highly elastic denims with authentic looks.
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In Retro Cult, Calik recreates the vintage fabrics in demand at secondhand stores around the world. Green casts, dirty washes and shades of brown give the fabrics a worn-in look and feel.
Comfort unpins TDMI’s collection. The mill uses a special spinning technique in the warp to make fabrics feel softer. Comfort-stretch fabrics mimic the appearance of traditional rigid fabrications with marbling effects and trendy vintage slub character. In rigid fabrics, TDMI offers both 100 percent cotton varieties and others with Tencel for a touch of sheen.
TDMI is seeing growing interest in workwear. Spanning novelty weaves like cable stripes, chevron, railroad stripes and canvas, the high-tensile fabrics cater to brands that specialize in utility apparel as much as they appeal to brands that want to offer the trendy workwear look.
“Futuristic optimism” is the inspiration for Orta’s two-part collection. One grouping leans into the quiet luxury trend with sateen weaves, 2×1 twills, recycled and virgin cotton chambrays and coatings that help fabrics maintain their color. Orta teamed with local Turkish tailors and Ereks-Blue Matters to turn the fabrics into polished garments, resulting in denim suiting, vests and button-down shirts with removable collars.
The second group taps into everyday streetwear. Bottom-weight 12 oz. fabrics feel lighter with loose and drapey handles. An indigo chambray washes down to a hidden green hue. Colors span purple, gray, olive, blueberry, pink and caramel.
The Barbie craze inspired Neela by Sapphire Fibers to add magenta pink to its collection. A warp yarn technology makes the fabrics softer. The Pakistani mill also showed Magic Black, a black-black denim achieved with a Sulphur weft, and colorful yoga pant-inspired fabrics made with nylon.
Color denim is gaining traction with Naveena Denim Mills. The Pakistani mill offers yarn-dyed options and, for the first time, piece dye.
Earthy colors and a new lightweight leather-like coating add a soft vintage look to ADM’s lineup. The mill showcased fabrics as chinos, cargo pants, shorts, cropped jackets and miniskirts to inspire brands to think beyond jeans.
Cone Denim’s trend-driven assortment includes 2×2 constructions with a bit of give, broken twill fabrics with a soft drape and unconventional garments like a denim T-shirt with a jersey collar and white jeans with indigo patchwork. The mill is also playing with crosshatch and herringbone weaves and workwear stripes that offer a variety of wash-down possibilities.
A collaboration with Denim Dudes flexes Artistic Milliners and Star Fades International’s abilities to make trendy fabrics and garments. Mirroring their Spring/Summer 2025 trend report, Denim Dudes applied vintage dye effects, aggressive washes and leather-like coatings to jeans and jackets.
Another Artistic Milliners collaboration showcased the breadth of colors that can be achieved with Officina39’s circular dyestuff, Recycrom.
AGI Denim offers a new black denim with a black warp and weft. Another brown fabric has a secret indigo weft that comes out in the wash. Though vintage looks have been trending for several years, AGI anticipates the market to shift to a more refined aesthetic for S/S ’25 toward fabrics that have highs and lows but minimal marbling.
