What if a pair of jeans could tell the story of how it was made, from the cotton field to the finished garment? That is the idea behind Naturalls, a new denim capsule collection making its debut at Climate Week NYC this week.

Created by Avalo, The LYCRA Company, Neela by Sapphire Fibres Ltd., and Soko, with designs by Gordon Muir of Labor Made Inc., Naturalls brings together different approaches to cotton, fiber, fabric and denim finishing in one collection.

The capsule includes work pants, jackets, aprons and other utility-inspired pieces, drawing inspiration from the workwear worn by farmers who grow the natural fibers used in fashion.

For Tricia Carey, CCO at Avalo, the starting point is the farmer.

Every piece of clothing starts in a field, with a farmer and a plant working harder than most people realize to keep up with a changing climate. Naturalls is our way of putting that reality in front of the designers and product developers who buy and build with denim every day.

It Starts With Cotton

For Naturalls, the story starts with the cotton.

Avalo’s Low-Footprint Cotton is grown without irrigation and, according to the company, uses 75% less fertilizer and generates half the greenhouse gas emissions of conventionally grown cotton.

That is an important part of the denim story because a pair of jeans begins long before the cotton reaches a mill. How the crop is grown affects the water, fertilizer and other resources needed before it becomes fabric.

The collection was also designed as a tribute to the farmers behind the material. Gordon Muir drew inspiration from the practical workwear worn in the fields where the cotton begins and he says:

Our vision was to develop a new take on functional workwear, inspired by the workers who do the unsung jobs, the Farmers who created the fiber used in the collection – these are the real heroes. The Naturalls Collection began there.
— Gordon

From the cotton, Naturalls moves into fiber and fabric.

Building the Denim

The LYCRA Company has contributed its Renewable LYCRA® fibre, which contains 70% renewable content. Based on a 2026 comparative life-cycle assessment by Ramboll, the company says the fibre has up to a 45% lower carbon footprint than its fossil-based equivalent.

Neela, the Pakistani denim mill behind the project, worked on spinning, weaving and garment production, developing the fabrics and construction used for the collection.

The result is denim designed to retain the qualities people expect from the fabric while using different approaches to how it is produced. Zeeshan Ahmed, General Manager of Business Development at Neela says:

We’re living in a collaboration era, and that spirit became the driving force behind Naturalls.

Changing the Way Denim Is Finished

The final stage is denim finishing, which helps determine a garment’s colour, softness and worn-in appearance.

Soko has brought its Hydrogel technology to the collection. The technology turns water into a gel, allowing several finishing treatments to take place in a single bath.

According to Soko, the process can reduce water use by up to 85%, energy consumption by 68% and processing time by 50%. Naturalls also uses Soko’s RARE natural mineral pigments and natural binders to create its earth-inspired colors.

Luca Braschi, Marketing & Technology Manager at Soko, says:

Garment finishing plays an essential role in shaping both the look and the environmental impact of denim.

Why Naturalls at Climate Week NYC?

What makes Naturalls interesting is that the collection is not focused on just one change to denim.

The four partners are looking at different points in the same process: how cotton is grown, what goes into the fibre, how the fabric is woven and how the finished denim is treated.

Bringing those elements together in one collection makes the idea easier to understand. Instead of looking at an individual material or technology on its own, Naturalls shows how several changes can come together in a finished garment.

Its debut at Climate Week NYC, which runs from September 20 to 27, puts that idea into a much wider conversation about materials, manufacturing and fashion’s environmental footprint.

The bigger question is what happens after the capsule. Can some of these approaches be used more widely in denim production?

For now, Naturalls offers a look at what is possible when different parts of the denim supply chain work together, from the cotton field to the finished garment.