A two-day summit on “Denims: A Democracy in Fashion” was held in Ahmedabad as denim plays a major role in fashion trend since jeans are worn by consumers both in urban and rural areas across all the country’s economic strata and it also helps to break down barriers.

According to PR Roy, chairman of Diagonal Consulting in India, the company that organized the conference along with the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry said that historically, denim has been one of the fastest-growing apparel fabric segments, with denim production having grown by 500 million meters, from 700 million meters in 2010 to 1.2 billion meters in 2015.

He noted the country’s denim capacity is far higher than current production — 300 million meters more can be produced each year. It’s just a question of tapping the resources that already exist.

Denim makes up 35 percent of total textile exports from India and is expected to rise to 45 percent of total exports by 2020. The production capacity is also expected to increase, to 1.5 billion meters by 2020.

Aamir Akhtar, ceo of Denim (Lifestyle Fabrics) at Arvind Mills, one of the largest denim producers in the world, said that the denims industry is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 13 to 15 percent.

However, according to J. Berrye Worsham, president and chief executive officer of Cotton Incorporated, only 32 percent of people in India like to wear denim. Sharing a recent study by Cotton Inc., he said that 71 percent of people in Europe and Latin America enjoy wearing denim, followed by 70 percent in the U.S., 58 percent in China and 57 percent in Japan.

Justin Coates, manager of market analysis at Cotton Inc., said that the percentage of Indian consumers who enjoy wearing denim is highest among men (50 percent), those between ages 15 and 24 (46 percent), those living in Delhi (43 percent), and people living in Bangalore (41 percent).

In the last seven years denim has really picked up, said Nirav Shah, cofounder and partner of Diagonal Consulting, pointing out that the film industry from Bollywood has led the trend for city residents to totally accept it, with rural areas not far behind. A lot of fabric goes to surrounding markets, and there is still a lot more export potential for denim, with Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia taking a big leap into jeans production.

But a major issue related to production is the water consumption, with 1,200 to 1,500 liters of water needed for one pair of jeans. A lot of effort and innovation is being made by different companies in India, but there is still a long way to go for absolute commercialization of these.

Trending now, especially in smaller cities across India, is cotton denim mixed with polyester.

Shah observed that as far as product development is concerned, a lot of polyester fiber has made inroads into denim in various forms, leading to lower priced products. This has been a phenomenon in the last five years. While organic denim has slowly taken a backseat.

Although unbranded denim products have a 60 percent share of the market, especially in the lower priced category, the premium segment has been growing fast.

According to designer Hemant Sagar of the designer duo Lecoanet Hemant, who has worked in the fashion industry in Paris as well as in India for the last three decades said that denim has become everybody’s textile and everybody’s garment in India. It’s a novelty for 2016-17 using denim as a fashion material with embroidery. The duo’s recently launched denim-inspired line called Genes, for example, is an innovative spin on the fabric.

Meanwhile, the global denim jeans market is projected to grow 8 percent, from $55 billion in 2015 to $59 billion by 2021, with Latin America and Asia expected to lead the increase. The projected growth is expected to be 12 percent in Asia, 15 percent in Latin America, 10 percent in North America and 4 percent in Europe over the next six years, according to the study from Cotton Inc.