Jeansland Podcast

In Episode 72’s Andrew’s Take, Andrew reflects on the sale of Everlane, one of the most visible transparency-focused brands of the last fifteen years.

For years, Everlane tried to bring sourcing, factories, pricing, and production into the consumer conversation. Whether you agreed with everything the company did or not, it stood apart from most apparel brands by making transparency part of its identity.

The discussion looks at what the sale might tell us about sustainability, consumer behavior, and the economics behind doing things differently. Not whether consumers care about these issues, but whether they care enough to change how they buy.

At the center of it all is a larger question. If transparency only works when consumers are willing to pay for it, what happens when they aren’t?

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

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Some people enter denim through fashion. Lucia Rosin came to it through patternmaking, textiles, and the discipline of building a garment from the inside out.

In Episode 71, Andrew sits down with Lucia Rosin, founder of MEIDEA, to talk about craft, sustainability, education, and the long path from technical knowledge to industry perspective.

The conversation begins in Veneto, where Lucia grew up in a farming family outside Treviso. From there, it moves through technical fashion school, early work in Italy, formative years in India and Bali, and eventually Benetton in the 1990s, when denim, fabric development, and creative freedom were all part of the same conversation.

Along the way, they discuss sustainability, Made in Italy, the changing expectations placed on brands, and what happens when technical skills become harder to pass on.

As a teacher at IUAV in Venice, Lucia also offers a perspective on the next generation entering the industry, and why curiosity, patience, and hands-on experience still matter in a business increasingly shaped by technology.

This episode is about how knowledge gets built, how industries change, and what is worth preserving as they do.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Lucia Rosin
Founder of MEIDEA | Founder & Designer at BLU’N ME
MEIDEA, BLU'N ME Instagram, LinkedIn

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Before we continue with the next episodes in the FRESH BLOOD series, we’re revisiting a conversation that helped define what the series is really about: listening to the next generation already working inside the industry.

Andrew speaks with Lucille Ix and Lucas Van de Woestyne, two young professionals who grew up around fabric manufacturing and are now working inside it themselves. It is a useful reminder that denim is a huge industry, but also a small community, and that its future depends on whether people like them choose to stay.

Lucille, 22, is based in New York and works across China and Vietnam. Lucas, 27, is based in Ghent, Belgium and works for a denim mill in China with a focus on Europe. Their families have been in the business for generations, and they have known each other since childhood. Their fathers worked together in denim mills in the United States.

We talk about what surprised them when they entered the industry. How denim can be massive in volume but small in practice. How relationships hold over decades, even across competing companies. We also talk about how young people are received at shows, and why many veterans want new people to enter the industry and stay.

We get into sustainability in plain terms. What their friends actually care about when they buy clothes. Why quality and longevity are easier for consumers to hold than technical claims. Lucas points to a structural gap: mills are expected to innovate, but brands do not always want to pay for the price of that innovation.

We also touch trade and geopolitics, the way duties and tariffs can change decisions overnight, and why being informed is now part of the job. We end on what success looks like to them: community, continuity, and the people behind the product.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Lucille Ix
Marketing & Sales Assistant, Advanced Denim
Advanced Denim, LinkedIn, Instagram

Luccas Van de Woestyne
Marketing Director Europe, Freedom Denim
Freedom Denim, LinkedIn

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Paul Cowell taught Andrew a great deal of what he knows about indigo.

In Episode 69, Andrew sits down with Paul Cowell, whose career has moved through ICI, BASF, DyStar, BluConnection, and Archroma. His work sits at the intersection of chemistry, denim processing, mills, brands, and the commercial reality of making innovation work at scale.

The conversation begins with chemistry. How synthetic dye development shaped modern textiles. How indigo works. Why pre-reduced indigo changed denim dyeing. And why the fact that most synthetic indigo still comes from China should concern anyone who depends on blue jeans.

From there, they get into the strange logic of denim itself. A dye with poor affinity for cotton. A process built around reduction, oxidation, dipping, skying, washing down, and removing much of what was just put on. Inefficient, complicated, and still one of the most beloved systems in apparel.

They also talk about bioengineered indigo, the real barriers to cleaner chemistry, and why sustainability in textiles is never just about one product or one claim. It is about clean chemistry, efficient manufacturing, durability, regulation, and whether the industry is willing to pay for better systems.

There is a bigger question underneath it all: what happens when the future of fashion depends not only on fiber, fabric, and design, but on the chemistry most consumers never see? This episode is really about indigo, and the complicated system built around making denim blue.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Paul Cowell
Global Textile Chemistry & Marketing Strategist, Paul Cowell Consultancy
LinkedIn

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In Episode 68’s Andrew’s Take, he looks at the rise of secondhand clothing. Not as a side story in fashion, but as one of the fastest-growing parts of the global apparel business.

Secondhand clothing is now growing dramatically faster than traditional apparel retail. In some cases, three or four times faster. And younger consumers are beginning to ask the question the industry never really wanted them to ask: why buy new at all?

He breaks down the numbers behind resale growth in the U.S., Europe, and globally, and why the shift matters not just economically, but structurally.

At the center of it all is a larger contradiction. An industry built on perpetual production now colliding with consumers increasingly comfortable buying what already exists.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

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FRESH BLOOD continues with Part 6, featuring Justin Bastarache, Founder of Whelk and Pipo Canada.

Justin started with a sustainable headwear brand, then found the larger problem: almost nobody was making caps in Eastern Canada anymore. So he began building the factory himself.

Andrew and Justin talk about what it takes to make locally in a category dominated by imports. Labor, pricing, training, minimums, lead times, and why “Made in Canada” can matter more clearly than another sustainability claim.

They also get into his biodegradable brim, the limits of competing on price, and the reality of building a small factory from the ground up.

This is a conversation about local manufacturing, practical sustainability, and creating capacity where it had almost disappeared.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Justin Bastarache
Founder of Whelk and Pipo Canada
Whelk, Pipo Canada, LinkedIn

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Growth in denim follows a pattern.

In Episode 66’s Andrew’s Take, he looks at what has actually driven expansion in the jeans business over time, and why it’s stalled.

Every real boom came from a shift in the product itself. New machinery, new yarns, new fits, new finishes. Changes that made people stop wearing what they had and buy something new.

That hasn’t happened in a while.  

The industry has become more efficient, more technical, more optimized. But it’s also become more predictable. Now all we talk about is how jeans are made, not why anyone wants them.

A short look at where growth really comes from, and what’s missing now.

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FRESH BLOOD is about renewal. Every industry either regenerates itself or slowly hardens. In this Jeansland series, Andrew steps back to listen to the next generation already working inside denim’s supply chain, upstream in fibers, sourcing platforms, laundries, and raw materials.

In Part 5 of the series, Andrew sits down with Saifullah Minhas, Director of Sales and Marketing at Delta Garments, a third-generation family-owned factory based in Lahore, Pakistan. His family business, built out of collapse, reinvention, and persistence, exports denim and twill apparel to the UK, EU, and US.

From there, the discussion moves through the realities of running a factory today. What happens when a business becomes too dependent on a single customer. How COVID forced a reset from volume-driven production to product-driven thinking. And why shifting a factory’s mindset can be harder than changing its machinery.  

They also get into where value is actually created. The pressure to undercut versus the decision to build something more complex. The gap between fabric capability and finished product. And why Pakistan, despite its strength in raw materials, still struggles to define a clear product identity.

There is a broader layer underneath it all. Sustainability, and where it breaks down. Not in effort, but in measurement, incentives, and accountability across the system. What can be controlled at the factory level. And what cannot.

At its core, this is about direction. About ownership. And about what it takes to move from filling capacity to building something that lasts.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Saifullah Minhas
Director Sales and Marketing, Delta Garments
Delta Garments, Delta's LinkedIn, Saifullah's LinkedIn

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The war doesn't show up where you think it does.

In Episode 64's Andrew's Take, he looks at the war in Iran, not politically, but through the lens of the jeans industry. Orders were booked months ago. Prices were locked when oil was lower, freight was cheaper, and currencies were more stable.

None of that is true anymore.

Factories across Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam are absorbing the difference. They didn't start the war. Their countries aren't fighting it. But between energy costs, freight surcharges, chemical pricing, and weakening currencies, the margin on a finished garment simply disappears.

The contract is fixed. The cost is not. Andrew breaks down exactly where that gap shows up, and who carries it.

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FRESH BLOOD is about renewal. Every industry either regenerates itself or slowly hardens. In this Jeansland series, Andrew steps back to listen to the next generation already working inside denim’s supply chain, upstream in fibers, sourcing platforms, laundries, and raw materials.

In Part 4 of the series, Andrew sits down with Hayato Nishi, a second-generation industry professional whose path into denim and textiles didn’t start with product, but with perspective. Shaped by a global upbringing, Hayato came into fashion first as a consumer, then as a builder.

From there, the conversation traces his path through the industry. From early streetwear projects in Boston to building community-driven retail concepts. From there into Shima Seiki, working at the forefront of whole garment 3D knitting technology, and eventually into Lenzing, where he now works closely with brands on fiber strategy and material decisions.

Along the way, they get into what actually gets lost in the process. The gap between design and manufacturing. The disappearance of product knowledge as production moved offshore. And why even the most advanced technologies still depend on people who understand how things are made.

They also talk about what drives decisions today. Design first. Price second. Materials after that. A reality that complicates the conversation around sustainability, even as the industry tries to move in that direction.

There’s also a broader shift underneath it all. New tools, new systems, new ways of working. But not always used in the right way. Especially when it comes to AI, where the real opportunity may not be replacing creativity, but connecting design to production in a way the industry hasn’t solved yet.

At its core, this is a discussion about learning. About staying open. And about what it takes to build a point of view in an industry that’s constantly changing.

Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim.

Hayato Nishi
Head of Key Accounts Business Development East Coast USA & Canada, Lenzing

TENCEL: https://tencel.com/
Lenzing Fibers: https://lenzing.com/
Nishi &: https://www.instagram.com/nishi_and/
Hayato Nishi Designs: https://www.instagram.com/hayato_nishi_designs.jpg

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