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Giorgio Armani's "green" spirit is embodied by Armani Jeans

This collection is about fashion which respects the environment, where technology bows to ecology, as the production process aims at saving energy and all processes bear the European Oeko-Tex Standard 100 guarantee which certifies that health-harming chemical substances are eradicated during production. The project was started in 1995 and has over the years become more complex and diversified.The first step was recycled denim, putting in process an operation for regenerating indigo denim making it, dry and free from additives and thus preventing the destruction of the materials in the incinerators of public dumps. Not even dyes are used and the color is that of the previous life of the fabric.

This approach was so revolutionary at the time that the following year a pair of Armani jeans was puton display at the Innovations Exhibition at the Science and Technology Museum of Milan. From 18 April 1996, for four months, it was kept in a special Plexiglas box, accompanied by silk-screen-printed pictures of the materials during the various phases of the procedure, descriptions and a brief history of environment-friendly jeans. In the autumn/winter 96/97 collections new materials were added for recycling: woolen cloth, with 60% recycled wool according to a very ancient tradition but with a totally new technology; and recycled pile; and recycled cross-dyed cotton leading to a drastic reduction in the double exploitation of cotton fields, which would otherwise deplete the land and involve the use of antiparasitics, insecticides and weed killers. Washing is also protected by the Oeko-Tex certificate: eco wash, eco bleach, eco stone.

In the belief that enhancing Armani Jeans products with environmental awareness is also important, as the target is a young consumer increasingly attentive to all health and environmental matters, in November of the same year hemp made it's debut. A range of men's and women's garments was marketed, made in a fabric which had completely disappeared from the market and obtained from a plant no longer cultivated in Italy. Hemp is a herbaceous vegetable which does not require pesticides or weed killers and which represents one of the most effective photosynthetic converters of carbon dioxide into oxygen. Once processed, hemp produces a highly resistant and clean yarn, with a molecular structure which makes the fabric cool in summer(it absorbs up to 95% of infrared and UVA rays) and warm and comfortable in the winter. It is also the only material whose production cycle is carried out solely in Italy, ensuring total control for consumers.

In order to underline the commitment, in line with EC directives, to creating new "industrial ethics", Armani Jeans took part in the interesting experiment of the Ecomoda event, at the Milan Triennale, which overviews all production policies relating to environmental improvement, energy saving and beco-compatible technological advance. Having laid the foundations for this new fashion thinking, the project expanded by reviving traditional Italian processes and inserting futuristic technologies: from calico, which in the nineteenth century was used to make the sails of boats on the Adriatic, with details, finishes and waxing created according to the rules of period crafted sails, to the "new techno fabric" - polyester obtained from the recycling of plastic bottles, a technique hitherto used only for pile. The labels are also Oeko-Tex.

Giorgio Armani says: "Armani Jeans is and will increasingly be aimed at prioritizing strategies linked to environmental improvement, with potential for added value for products and consumers without affecting the final price. Our commitment represents a focal point for corporate image and underlines the importance of creating new industrial ethics, to support future market challenges".
As part of expansion of processing techniques, Armani Jeans has also included a small production range of knitwear in organic cotton, free from chemical synthesis residues (pesticides, antiparasitics) and not genetically engineered. It is part of a fair trade project with Peru and Bolivia to aid an uncorrupted relaunch of the economy of these countries and make a significant contribution to natural farming methods. Thus in the same fields where previously cocaine plants were cultivated, the local population now grows cotton: also presented in a cotton/angora mixture, to guarantee ecological correctness and convenience, the angora acting as a bithermal material. Then there is the Pima cotton/Alpaca mixture in eco-guaranteed cotton and pure Alpaca wool from an ancient Andean race, only in natural colors so as to save some species of dark-coated Alpaca from extinction, colors which otherwise would be rejected as deviating from the standards set by the wool manufacturing industry.

The Armani Jeans Ecology Project continues to grow and experiment. Day after day it deals with health, the environment and fashion: the first steps towards a good relationship with the world.