Kingpins Amsterdam showcased a range of colorful, textured and performance-driven denim as mills and fiber producers unveiled their Spring/Summer 2028 concepts. The collections pointed to a season defined by optimistic hues, tactile surfaces and functional fabric constructions.

Eastman Naia made its second appearance at Kingpins Amsterdam, supporting its network of mill partners like Advance Denim and Cone Denim and showcasing the breadth of applications for Naia Renew staple fiber.

Naia Renew is made with 60 percent sustainably sourced wood pulp and 40 percent GRS-certified recycled content, allocated through a certified mass balance process. The fiber is produced with Eastman’s molecular recycling technology that breaks down hard-to-recycle waste into molecular building blocks that can be used to create new cellulose acetate fibers. The fiber blends with natural fibers, other man-made cellulosic fibers and synthetics, allowing manufacturers to develop fabrics with different characteristics.

Chad Doub, Eastman’s global market segment manager for casual wear and home, said the company sees three distinct categories for the fiber in denim: authentic, fashion and performance. The performance category is gaining particular momentum as brands look to differentiate their denim offerings with added functionality, including quick-drying capabilities and odor management. In these applications, the fiber is typically blended with polyester, recycled polyester or Coolmax. Eastman recommends incorporating at least 15 percent Naia Renew into the composition to realize the fiber’s benefits.

“Denim has always been a versatile category, and today brands and manufacturers are looking for greater flexibility in how fabrics look, feel and perform,” Doub said. “What makes Naia Renew particularly interesting is its ability to work with different fibers and constructions, giving our mill partners the flexibility to develop fabrics for a wide range of applications. Collaborations like those showcased at Kingpins demonstrate how material versatility can translate into meaningful choices for denim brands and designers.”

SEFF showcased its cottonized hemp technology, which the company describes as “a tectonic shift in natural fiber processing.” The company’s patented Nano-Pulse technology uses controlled electric discharges in water to gently dissolve the glue binding hemp fibers together. The first-of-its-kind process requires no harsh mechanical shredding, which preserves the fiber length, strength and spinnability.

While the technology enables 100 percent hemp fabrics, a representative said the typical amount used in blends in 50 percent. He added that it can also be applied to stretch yarn.

Just one year after introducing Tencel Lyocell – HV100 to the denim market, Lenzing has already met its sales target and has onboarded nearly 50 mills across 13 countries.

“There are a lot of novelties in the market, but a lot don’t scale up,” said Tuncay Kılıçkan, head of global business development, denim at Lenzing. He credited Tencel Lyocell – HV100’s success to being a technology that solves a problem and is easy to understand. Tencel Lyocell – HV100 eliminates the shiny look of traditional Tencel but maintains the fiber’s soft hand—qualities customers can see and feel. Additionally, the fiber fits readily into mills’ operations and existing machinery.

Next, Kılıçkan said Lenzing is expanding the fiber to home textiles.

US Denim Mills presented Made By Her, a collaborative project with the nonprofit Indus Heritage Trust, which aims to preserve Pakistan’s heritage. Through this initiative, the Pakistani mill bridges heritage and contemporary design and gives traditional crafts a platform to be seen and valued in the global denim community.

“The project focuses on working closely with women artisans, translating traditional embroidery, motifs, and handcraft techniques into modern denim garments while preserving the authenticity and identity of each craft,” said Aleem Ahmad, US Denim’s deputy general manager, product and business development. “The process has been highly collaborative—from exploring traditional motifs and selecting denim fabrics to defining washes, embroidery threads, and garment construction together.”

Ahmad added that it’s “more than a collection” because it puts the women behind the craft at the center. “It celebrates their skills, stories, and the knowledge passed down through generations, while highlighting the important role their work plays in sustaining households, communities, and Pakistan’s living craft heritage,” he said.

While the initial Made By Her collection at Kingpins demonstrated the artisans’ capabilities, the mill is developing a sales mechanism to receive orders from brands. A representative added, “the new luxury is handmade.”

Karachi, Pakistan-based Naveena Denim framed its Spring/Summer 2028 collection as a reading club that compared four fabric categories to literary genres. The mill presented authentic constructions, irregular textures and surfaces designed to develop character over time in Timeworn; fabrics with stretch and recovery in MoveWell; lightweight, fluid fabrics in Airloom; and unexpected color pairings, earthy hues and fabrics with nuanced surfaces in Colorbound.

Color is also a key focus area for Isko. The mill’s collection invites designers to “experience denim through a broader spectrum of color, tactile surfaces, and sensory character.” The mill showed a range of new summer colors—green, yellow, red and tan—as well as tinted options. Isko introduced Supreme Colors, a fabric family with high-definition visual depth, or 3D effects. The laser-friendly fabrics have strong yarn character and deliver fast and consistent fading for natural contrasts and worn-in effects.

Beyond color, Isko presented new textured weaves, canvas and herringbone constructions and fabrics with a silk-like touch.

Advance Denim challenges conventional ways to produce white denim with Root Raw. For the collection, the mill applies a special cleaning process to cotton that removes 80 percent of impurities. The collection is a chemical-free alternative to ecru, PFDs and bleached denim.

ADM showcased a collection of fiber-dyed fabrics designed to retain their color. While black is the most popular choice, a company representative said the technology can accommodate virtually any color a brand desires. The offering complements ADM’s in-house recycling capabilities, allowing the mill to dye recycled cotton as well.

Panther Denim introduced fabrics dyed with Daosheng Bio’s 100 percent bio-based indigo. The firm produces the indigo through microbial fermentation and synthetic biology, rather than direct photosynthesis.

The innovation was presented alongside seasonal novelties including leather flocking that uses real suede leather, transparent foil for matte-shine effects, metallic foils that can be washed down and E-Crease, a piece-dyed collection with a crinkled effect. Another concept, Cheenoh, offers fabrics with a washable chino look, compact weave and subtle slubs.

Panther addresses the market’s demand for performance denim with DynamicFlex, a concept that uses Lycra Dual FX for yoga and workout looks. A chenille backing adds comfort. Other fabrics contain hemp, silk, Tencel dtex 2.2 and Tencel Lyocell – HV 100.

With color in high demand for the last two seasons, Calik Denim presented red and green overdyes, brown-blue casts and pops of red and robin’s-egg blue. The color stories were supported by the mill’s breakthrough technology, True Fit, which provides structural memory to rigid and low-stretch fabrics. It is engineered to tackle denim’s common issue of losing shape and bagging out over time. The fabrics have 70 percent recovery and 50 percent shape retention.

Turkish mill Bossa showed a variety of fabrics across three concepts. In The Blue Note, the mill delivers clean everyday denim, rigid constructions, chambray and classic workwear. Inspired by contemporary dance, Heritage Through Movement provides lightweight and midweight fabrics fit for summer. Stretch fabrics have sleek constructions without the bulky appearance of conventional stretch denim, and mechanical stretch fabrics offer big, open twills and rigid character. With Denim in Flux, Bossa explores yarn-dyed stripes, fancy weaves, new dyes, tints and overdyes.

Soorty focused on versatility and multi-way styling for S/S ’28. The Pakistani mill’s Kinetic collection delivered utility through dense constructions and temperature-regulating fabrics that are enhanced with Coolmax, Core Drye and TruTemp365 technologies. Other constructions are made with Tencel Lyocell – HV 100, linen and SOCI organic cotton and offer a variety of colors that age naturally.

The dynamic collection was complemented by fabrics engineered to reveal high contrasts in the wash, laser-friendly fabrics and high-performance stretch constructions and sateen.

AGI Denim introduced Tomorrowlab Active, a collection of denim fabrics that are lighter and retain the texture and character of authentic indigo. The collection spans 8-ounce fabrics that have the strength of a 12-ounce fabric thanks to a touch of Dyneema in the blend to lightweight fabrics made with SolucellAir’s hallow cotton yarn. Fabrics also use Outlast, a microencapsulated phase-change material based on natural wax, for adaptive temperature management.

Meanwhile, the mill’s creative arm, The Agency, tapped into the color trend with a collection described as the “opposite of quiet luxury.” Rainbow repair, brooch-like embellishments, sprayed color and patterned patchwork contributed to the maximalist aesthetic. Other highlights included Trucker jackets with balloon-like shapes, jeans with off-kilter closures, ankle ties and convertible pant/short constructions.