ROOTS | Women Weave the Future: From heritage to horizon

How a cross cultural women’s only collaboration leads to a directional denim capsule Amsterdam / Lahore — October 2025 —, House of Denim Amsterdam, its Talent Incubator program and Pakistan’s US Denim Mills have joined forces to create a directional denim capsule collection premiering at Kingpins Amsterdam and Denim Days: ROOTS | Women Weave the Future.

Female authorship in denim

Maryam Amin (age 27), Creative Head R&D at US Denim Mills, traveled from Lahore to Denim City Amsterdam—her first time in Europe. Here she teamed up with Eva Immerzeel (age 20) and Nikki Kolk (age 20), two young women from the House of Denim Incubator Program and assembled a team of young talents supporting them in the making process. Working side by side, sharing stories (roots) and testing ideas, creativity was unleashed. The resulting capsule collection is a reflection of female authorship in denim.

The ROOTS project was initiated by denim consultant Piero Turk and US Denim Mills and marks the third chapter in an ongoing series of collaborations. Mariette Hoitink, co-founder of House of Denim and manager of the Talent Incubator, was invited to direct this edition. She proposed to place women at the heart of the project and the first step was to get the female creative lead from Pakistan over to Amsterdam to collaborate.

Mariette Hoitink: “Having Maryam here in Amsterdam was essential. ROOTS shows what happens when women from different cultures, skills, and perspectives come together: the result is directional denim. Professionals like Maryam are used to working for clients within briefings. This project provided a space for boundless creativity and experimental design with a team of female creators."

Piero Turk:“What is textile? It’s blending fibers, weaving together different yarns. Mixing tradition with innovation. Our project is also a tribute to textile. Blending and weaving together different backgrounds, different cultures and approaches, different attitudes and feelings. To express and create a new identity. A unique cloth.”

Innovative fabrics dyed with natural indigo and co-creation

The fabric platform centers on regenerative cotton, blended across variants with TencelTM, linen, and hemp to balance drape, breathability, and strength while lowering impact. These selvedge denims are woven on vintage shuttle looms and naturally indigo-dyed with the US Denim Mills proprietary Eco Zero dying process: a rope-dyeing process that cuts cutting water usage by up to 93%, electricity consumption by up to 72%, greenhouse gas emissions by 82%, and chemical use by 24% compared to traditional methods.

The Looms

All fabrics were woven in Pakistan on Picanol selvedge shuttle looms — this machinery that was built in the 1960 is to this day valued for their durability, precision and reliability. They were imported in 2011 from Mexico and reinstalled at US Denim Mills. The looms themselves carry therefore a history of origin and migration.

Motifs

Onto these fabrics, Pakistani and Dutch heritage motifs were reinterpreted through laser and embroidery. Not as ornament, but as dialogue: patterns rooted in tradition meeting contemporary methods, shaped collaboratively across two cultures.

Maryam Amin says: “Collaborating directly with the women at House of Denim felt seamless — we spoke the same design language. ROOTS gave me the chance to see how our skills and perspectives complement each other, and how denim can connect us and unfold creativity in meaningful ways.”

House of Denim atelier and lab

The capsule was developed and sampled at Denim City in Amsterdam, where access to labs and equipment enabled creative experimentation with laser of Jeanologia, treatments by Officina+39 and embroidery techniques.

Relevance for the Denim Industry

Roots: Women Weave the Future capsule that denim’s future lies in collaboration: across geographies and across perspectives. By combining advanced sustainable blends, cultural storytelling, and co-creation between a global mill and an incubator program, the project offers a fresh source of inspiration for brands and industry professionals worldwide. ROOTS | Women Weave the Future is presented at Kingpins Show Amsterdam October 15-16 and Denim Days Festival October 17-18. Going forward the capsule presentation will be displayed in Denim City.

About US Denim Mills

Hailing from Lahore – the heart of Pakistan, US Denim Mills, a company of US Group, is a fully integrated manufacturing and services entity with operational bases in Istanbul, London, and New York and over 25.000 employees. operational bases in Istanbul, London, and New York. Since its establishment in 1975 the family owned company takes pride in nurturing sustainable careers and unwavering integrity.