Jeansland Podcast

Jeansland

This is why I do this. Jeansland is a podcast about the ecosystem in which jeans live. There are an estimated 26 million cotton farmers around the world, and about 25% of their production goes into jeans, which could mean 6.2 million farmers depend on denim. I read estimates that at least 1 million people work in retail selling jeans, and another 1.5 to 2 million sew them. And then there are all the label producers, pattern makers, laundries, chemical companies, machinery producers, and those that work in denim mills. I mean, the jeans industry, which is bigger than the global movie and music business combined, employs a lot of human beings. And many of them, like me, love jeans. The French philosopher and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, when visiting New York, said, "Everyone in the New York subway is a novel." I never met her, but I guess she made the observation because of the incredible diversity of people who ride the subway system. I'm convinced the people in our jeans industry are like those in the subway. They are unique, with rich and complex stories to tell, and I want to hear them. And deep inside me, I think you might feel the same way. https://jeansland.co/

  1. Ep 58—FRESH BLOOD, Part 3: A New Generation of Mills with Lucille Ix and Lucas Van de Woestyne

    6D AGO

    Ep 58—FRESH BLOOD, Part 3: A New Generation of Mills with Lucille Ix and Lucas Van de Woestyne

    This is the third installment of our Fresh Blood series. I wanted to hear directly from two young professionals who grew up around textiles and are now working in fabric manufacturing. My guests are Lucille Ix, 22, based in New York and working across China and Vietnam, and Lucas Van de Woestyne, 27, based in Ghent, Belgium and working for a denim mill in China with a focus on Europe. Their families have been in the business for generations, and they have known each other since childhood. Their fathers worked together in denim mills in the United States. We talk about what surprised them when they entered the industry. How denim can be massive in volume but small in practice. How relationships hold over decades, even across competing companies. We also talk about how young people are received at shows, and why many veterans want new people to enter the industry and stay. We get into sustainability in plain terms. What their friends actually care about when they buy clothes. Why quality and longevity are easier for consumers to hold than technical claims. Lucas points to a structural gap: mills are expected to innovate, but brands do not always want to pay for the price of that innovation. We also touch trade and geopolitics, the way duties and tariffs can change decisions overnight, and why being informed is now part of the job. We end on what success looks like to them: community, continuity, and the people behind the product. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Lucille Ix Marketing & Sales Assistant, Advanced Denim Advanced Denim, LinkedIn, Instagram Luccas Van de Woestyne Marketing Director Europe, Freedom Denim Freedom Denim, LinkedIn Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    42 min
  2. Ep 57—FRESH BLOOD, Part 2: Denim and Transparency with Beyza Baykan

    FEB 25

    Ep 57—FRESH BLOOD, Part 2: Denim and Transparency with Beyza Baykan

    This is Part Two of our FRESH BLOOD series, where I sit down with the next generation of denim leaders and ask what they see that we may not. FRESH BLOOD is about perspective. It is about how young professionals view sustainability, transparency, collaboration, and the future of this industry. In this episode, I speak with Beyza Baykan, founder of HMS Hand Made Stone. At 26, with a background in mathematics and international relations from USC and experience at the World Bank, she chose to build a business inside denim rather than outside of it. HMS develops a patented, upcycled pumice alternative designed to reduce sludge, water use, and waste while maintaining the aesthetics brands expect. But this conversation goes beyond product. We talk about greenwashing. We talk about whether collaboration actually leads to change. We discuss transparency, ethics, regulation, and what responsibility designers and brands should carry. Beyza is candid about what surprised her in the industry and what she believes must change. Fresh Blood is about listening to the people who are already shaping what comes next. Have a listen. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Beyza Baykan Founder & CEO of Baytech, HMS Hand Made Stone HMS Hand Made Stone, Linked-In, HMS Instagram, Personal Instagram Interested in being featured on The Jeansland Podcast as our next Fresh Blood guest?  Reach out! Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    32 min
  3. Ep 56—FRESH BLOOD, Part 1: A Different View of the Future with Kaela Bonaquist and William Wood

    FEB 18

    Ep 56—FRESH BLOOD, Part 1: A Different View of the Future with Kaela Bonaquist and William Wood

    This is our second two-part special, and this time I step back and listen. Fresh Blood is about renewal. Every industry either regenerates itself or slowly hardens. In this episode, I sit down with Kaela Bonaquist from Lenzing and William Wood from Material Exchange to hear how the next generation sees denim, sourcing, fibers, and technology. They are already inside the system. Upstream in fibers. In sourcing platforms. In the mechanics of supply chains. They are not nostalgic, and they are not sentimental about how things used to be. They talk about traceability as a baseline expectation. Digital tools as normal. Automation as overdue. Sustainability not as a marketing layer, but as responsibility tied directly to cost, incentives, and decision-making. We discuss fiber realities, cotton, polyester, Tencel, blends, and the tension between performance, price, and environmental claims. We get into transparency, government regulation, and whether parts of the industry are structurally misaligned with their own public promises. And at the end, I ask them a simple question. If you ran this industry for a weekend, what would you change? Part 1 sets the tone. This is less about criticism and more about expectation. If you enter this business today, what feels broken, what feels promising, and what simply feels overdue. If the future of denim has a different voice, this is it. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Kaela Bonaquist Business Development – East Coast & Canada, Lenzing Fibers Inc. Lenzing Fibers Inc., Linked-In William Wood Product Development & Sales Manager Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    48 min
  4. Ep 55: The Experience Architect: Arne Koefoed

    FEB 11

    Ep 55: The Experience Architect: Arne Koefoed

    Andrew sits down with Arne Koefoed, co-founder of WINK, to talk about how throwing parties slowly turned into a creative life. Arne never planned on designing experiences. There was no event school, no formal path. It started with squats, punk parties, and rave culture, and with the realization that bringing people together could be just as creative as making an object. That first party set the tone for everything that followed. Over time, that same instinct carried Arne from underground scenes to working with some of the biggest brands in the world. What’s striking is how little the spirit has changed. The scale is different, but the mindset is still about energy, emotion, and making people feel something real. They talk about why the best events feel more like memories than productions, why fun is often misunderstood as something unserious, and how experience design is often less about control and more about trust. At its core, this is a conversation about creativity without a rulebook, about designing moments instead of things, and about how some of the most meaningful work begins by simply opening the door and seeing who shows up. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Arne Koefoed Founder and Head of Ideas at WINK Instagram, Linked-In Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    33 min
  5. Ep 54: The Cost of Rushing Innovation

    FEB 4

    Ep 54: The Cost of Rushing Innovation

    Andrew reflects on a new report from the Transformers Foundation, Unlocking Equity in Innovation, and why so much meaningful innovation never makes it to market. The supply chain spends years and real money developing better fibers, cleaner chemistry, and smarter processes, only to be told to prove everything in 18 months or less. Andrew shares a personal story about a breakthrough alternative to indigo that failed not because it didn’t work, but because the industry didn’t want to wait, didn’t want to risk change, and preferred the devil it knew. Using examples like Tencel™, polyester, and stretch denim, Andrew reminds us that real innovation takes decades, not seasons. When brands push timelines and costs downstream, that isn’t innovation. It’s cost shifting. The episode closes with reflections from Kingpins New York. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    4 min
  6. Ep 53—Water: Above and Below | Part Two: Will You Help?

    JAN 28

    Ep 53—Water: Above and Below | Part Two: Will You Help?

    This is Part 2 of our two-part Jeansland special, Water: Above and Below. In this episode, we continue the conversation with Rick Kellison and Brent Crossland, shifting from understanding the water problem to confronting what it will take to address it. The focus turns to the future of the TAWC (Texas Alliance for Water Conservation) project, why its work matters, and why keeping it funded is critical for farmers, brands, and the broader industry. We talk about how farmers balance environmental responsibility with economic reality, why profitability is essential to sustainability, and why real progress happens when farmers teach farmers in the field, not on slides. The discussion also widens to water use beyond agriculture, including AI data centers, oil and gas, and the growing competition for finite water resources. This episode is a direct call to action. For brands, retailers, and anyone serious about water, food, and fiber, the question becomes simple and uncomfortable. Will you help support the research, education, and knowledge sharing that agriculture will depend on in the decades ahead? If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, it’s worth beginning here. This episode then carries the conversation forward into the harder questions and what’s truly at stake. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Brent Crossland Linked-In Rick Kellison Linked-In Texas Alliance for Water Conservation TAWC Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    29 min
  7. Ep 52—Water: Above and Below | Part One: The Ogallala Aquifer

    JAN 21

    Ep 52—Water: Above and Below | Part One: The Ogallala Aquifer

    Today’s conversation is about something the denim industry rarely wants to look at directly, and that’s water. Not recycled water in factories. Not marketing claims. But the groundwater that actually makes cotton possible in the first place. This is the first episode of a two-part Jeansland special called Water: Above and Below. For this conversation, I’m joined by Rick Kellison and Brent Crossland to talk about the Ogallala Aquifer and why it matters so much to American cotton, especially on the Texas High Plains, where cotton depends on supplemental irrigation to survive. Rick spoke at our very first Transformers event back in 2015, where he warned the industry about water risk and the future of cotton on the High Plains. Nearly ten years later, we talk about what’s actually happened since then, how farmers have learned to do more with less, what an aquifer really is, why the Ogallala is a finite resource, and how much of U.S. cotton production depends on it. We also talk about soil health, irrigation technology, forage systems, and why integrating cotton, cattle, and crop rotation can reduce water use while improving long-term farm viability. And we look at the disconnect between how brands talk about water, and how rarely they ask where their cotton’s water actually comes from. This is Part One of a two-part series. Part Two of 'Water: Above and Below' drops next week, where we dig into the work happening on the ground, the farmer-led research behind it, the endowment that keeps it going, and what brands can actually do if they want to make a real difference. We also widen the lens to look at other major water users, including AI and energy, and what all of this means for the future. Brent Crossland Linked-In Rick Kellison Linked-In Texas Alliance for Water Conservation TAWC Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    28 min
  8. Ep 51: If Everyone’s So Unhappy, Why Not Band Together?

    JAN 19

    Ep 51: If Everyone’s So Unhappy, Why Not Band Together?

    A conversation with a friend about international politics turns into a simple question. If so much of the world is disturbed by the direction the United States has been taking, why doesn’t everyone just band together and try going it without the U.S.? That question leads Andrew to what he calls the Jeansland Nations, the countries where most of the world’s denim is produced. From there, the episode becomes a closer look at supply chain realities and geopolitical truths, not judgments about people, cultures, or national character. From China and Vietnam to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Mexico, and Egypt, Andrew looks at where jeans are actually made today and what those countries reveal about stability, employment, and economic dependence. This episode is not about taking sides. It is about understanding how power, labor, and money move through the global denim industry, and why doing things on your own is often more complicated than it sounds. Thank you to our sponsor Inside Denim. Please follow us on: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

    6 min
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5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

This is why I do this. Jeansland is a podcast about the ecosystem in which jeans live. There are an estimated 26 million cotton farmers around the world, and about 25% of their production goes into jeans, which could mean 6.2 million farmers depend on denim. I read estimates that at least 1 million people work in retail selling jeans, and another 1.5 to 2 million sew them. And then there are all the label producers, pattern makers, laundries, chemical companies, machinery producers, and those that work in denim mills. I mean, the jeans industry, which is bigger than the global movie and music business combined, employs a lot of human beings. And many of them, like me, love jeans. The French philosopher and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, when visiting New York, said, "Everyone in the New York subway is a novel." I never met her, but I guess she made the observation because of the incredible diversity of people who ride the subway system. I'm convinced the people in our jeans industry are like those in the subway. They are unique, with rich and complex stories to tell, and I want to hear them. And deep inside me, I think you might feel the same way. https://jeansland.co/

Information

  • Creator
    Jeansland
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    58
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Jeansland Podcast
  • Show Website
    Jeansland Podcast

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