Our legacy has been built on our people. Alberto Rigo is Candiani Denim’s Head of Development Center (DC) and Laundry. In our new sustainability report, he provided some updates on his activities.
We want to improve the garment finishing process and sustainable performance
At Candiani Denim, we want to support our clients after fabrics are shipped. We currently have two locations, the DC at our headquarters in Robecchetto con Induno, close to Milan, and the Design Center in Los Angeles, dedicated to garment finishing service. They aim to provide technical guidance on achieving the desired wash aesthetic and superior sustainable performance.
“The original DC has now evolved into a much bigger operation. It’s still small by most laundry standards, but now we have the capacity to wash around 500 garments a day. Our first lab-sized laundry was created to wash Candiani’s seasonal collections but using sustainability standards that were hard to find elsewhere. Now, we can offer our customers that same quality and approach to sustainability. We have also installed a software upgrade that can provide full traceability and transparency, in real-time, for every piece we wash. This software is integrated with the equipment and automatic dosing system and can also provide energy, water, and chemical consumption”, explained Alberto.
“What makes our laundry one-of-a-kind, especially in Italy, is that our doors are always open to our customers”, said the Head of DC. We want indeed to help them better understand the features of the fabric they have chosen and the entire denim production process.
“The other thing that makes the Candiani DC unique is our ongoing search for sustainable alternatives. We are continually searching for ways to eliminate dangerous applications, such as substituting hand sanding and potassium permanganate with laser booster and laser smoother”, continued Alberto.
We focus on ozone to reduce the environmental and social impact of laundry
The laundry and final finishing typically have the highest environmental and social impact in denim production. We want to help our clients reduce this negative aspect.
“We continue to focus a lot of energy on finding different ways to apply ozone. I believe that ozone is the only oxidant that can truly replace other harmful oxidants such as bleach, potassium permanganate, and peroxide. As it exists now, ozone is limited to what you can do in a washing machine. We are working on ways to develop new equipment and applications that extend its use and for it to be applied in more ways. We also continue to search for replacements for pumice stones. We keep searching and testing new technologies but have yet to find one that works as universally well as the traditional stone. But we’ll keep looking, and eventually, we’ll find it”, said Alberto.
Finally, efficiency is among the primary aims of our DC. “If you pick the right fabric, you’ll save money, time, and energy in the laundry. By starting to educate designers, buyers, merchandisers, etc., you can fix 50% of the problem. And this is where the real sustainability begins”, concluded Alberto.