White Oak Legacy Foundation (W.O.L.F.) Next Denim Class
White Oak Legacy Foundation (W.O.L.F.) will feature an evening of denim history with Levi’s historian Tracey Panek during its next Denim 101 class. The event is called ‘Vintage Denim’ and will take place on the 12th and 13th of March in Greensboro, North Carolina. Goodwill Industries, which is often a source of vintage denim pieces, will be a co-sponsor of the event.
There is a strong connection between Greensboro and its White Oak Cotton Mill and Levi Strauss & Co., which Ms. Panek will address. For a century (1915 to 2015), Cone Mill’s White Oak Cotton Mill was the exclusive provider of denim fabric for Levi’s 501 shrink-to-fit blue jeans. The White Oak plant closed its doors in 2017.
About White Oak Legacy Foundation
W.O.L.F. is a non-profit organization dedicated to denim education, history, and innovation. W.O.L.F. organizes an evening social, networking event for each of its Denim 101 classes. The events are open to the public. At a past event, W.O.L.F. featured a talk on indigo dyeing by textile technology writer Virginia Postrel, author of the book ‘The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World‘. Other events have focused on denim recycling, e-commerce trends, and denim innovations.
The W.O.L.F. events are usually staged at the historic Revolution Mill in Greensboro, not far from the White Oak Cotton Mill. Flannel fabrics were manufactured at Revolution Mill from 1898 until 1984. The mill has been converted into office space, and its tenants now include Wrangler and Lee brands and Cone Denim.
Denim Inspiration Event By W.O.L.F.
This past September, Cone Denim welcomed the W.O.L.F. Denim 101 students to its new offices in Revolution Mill. The event was called ‘Denim Inspiration‘. Denim 101 students had a chance to view Cone Denim’s FOUND collection and learn about the KING OF DENIMS swatch book.
The FOUND collection consists of about 40 denim garments that were found in a sharecropper’s shack on a farm in North Carolina. The garments date back to the 1930s and 1940s.
The KING OF DENIMS swatch book was a sales tool used by sales representatives for Cone Mills in the 1950s. It featured fabrics from the company’s history with a particular focus on the company’s Deeptone denim dyeing process. Cone Denim’s Deeptone process originated in 1936 when Cone Mills began applying the ‘Sanforized‘ pre-shrunk technology and the addition of sulfur-dyed black fiber blended with regular cotton in its fabrics.
Product developers from Cone Denim described to Denim 101 students how these artifacts are valuable to this day as inspiration for new fabrics.
Watch the recap video of the event here below.
Flyer and video link provided by White Oak Legacy Foundation (W.O.L.F.).