Traditional denim production is one of the apparel industry’s most resource-intensive processes. The iconic worn-in look of a favorite pair of jeans often comes at a high environmental price, demanding enormous amounts of water and harsh chemicals for washing and finishing. Guess, a legacy brand that helped popularize stone washing decades ago, now leads the pivot.
“We want a conscious customer,” said Ryan Hahn, director of R&D and innovation at Guess, Inc. “The only way to get that is if we teach them what to be looking for, what values they need to have, when they’re shopping.”
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To that end, Guess Jeans works to set that example by building sustainable alternatives into its foundation—using only recycled or organic materials. The Gen Z-focused brand is tackling the denim industry’s water and energy consumption issues with Guess AIRWASH, a washing method developed with Jeanologia that replaces conventional stone-washing methods with nano-bubbles and ozone.
“We have a responsibility to improve the industry we helped start and grow,” Hahn said. “And in 2025, that means focusing on great denim and the impact we have on the world around us.”
The brand sees this mandate as bigger than a one-off eco capsule as leadership pushes to embed lower-impact choices across the entire line—from adopting air-wash finishing at an accurate production scale (after securing supplier buy-in) to switching buttons, rivets, thread, packaging and fabrics to recycled or certified, lower-impact alternatives.
“We partnered with suppliers who share that passion and got them to invest in enough machinery to do hundreds of thousands—even millions—of units a year,” Hahn said, referring to Jeanologia. “Not just AIRWASH, but every detail across the collection is moving to organic, regenerative or recycled inputs.”
By manipulating ozone gas and moisture within a machine, Guess can achieve the classic stone wash look—being that identified by its signature highs, lows and abrasion—without using a single stone. And since the process also pulls color from the fabric, the need for traditional bleaching agents is minimized as well.
Instead of immersing jeans in a large bath, the eFlow technology treats garments within a “cloud of moisture” to apply only the precise amount of water and chemicals needed to achieve the desired effect. Manual dry processes for creating wear patterns—once only done by hand—can now be accomplished with advanced laser technologies, too.
Hahn credited this achievement to a strategic shift in supplier relationships as the updated approach allowed Guess to create mutually beneficial business agreements—those de-risking the significant capital expenditure for suppliers and encouraging them to invest in the necessary machinery to support large-scale sustainable production.
“The biggest piece of advice I’d give for other brands is to find and partner with suppliers that really share the same values that you do,” Hahn said. “If you do that, it’s not just a conversation about bottom line or how much money are we making off this—it’s a shared passion; not just a conversation about logistics.”
For Guess, that conversation is led by Nicolai Marciano these days as the young leader pushes the team to rethink old assumptions.
“I’ve been in the industry for a long time, working with a lot of jaded old-heads here in Los Angeles; Nicolai brings this fervor and this joy, this freshness to the whole process,” said Hahn. “He’s given his team the ability to constantly explore these new things and not be afraid to bring new ideas to the table—it’s really cool to see these young kids going back into our archives.”
That generational shift inside the company has also surfaced a reality about the audience Guess is courting: most people have no idea how their jeans are actually made.
“I wasn’t surprised by how little people know,” Hahn said. “Folks think you ‘make jeans’ and that’s it—they don’t realize it starts from a seed and runs through fiber, fabric and finishing.”
