Within the next edition of Denim Premiere Vision, taking place in Milan, at SuperstudioPiù, a special talk will take place–“From fossil-based to bio-crafted blue: A new era is starting for denim”. The event taking place on 20 May at 3PM, will host Li Li, chief brand and strategy officer, Chloris Biochem, and Fabio Adami Dalla Val, show manager, Denim Premiere Vision. As the company and the trade show have started the “Redefining Blue” collaboration strategy, they will discuss how Chloris Biochem’s newest bio-based color solutions can help the industry enter a new, lower-impact phase.
Li Li, who is leading Chloris, a pioneering biotech company redefining color through biology, spoke about it with Aliveandkiki.com.
Before joining Chloris, Li served as president, Condé Nast China, where she led digital transformation efforts. She was also general manager of Audemars Piguet China. Earlier in her career, she occupied senior leadership roles at L’Oréal’s luxury division across Paris, China, and APAC for over a decade.
Today she is driving Chloris’ global positioning, brand partnerships, and expansion initiatives, working with leading fashion brands and mills to establish a next-generation, bio-based color brand.
What is Chloris, and how does it work?
Chloris is a biotechnology company developing bio-based color solutions for textiles, and denim is our first major focus.
Our flagship dye is Classen Blue. Its name comes from Henri Classen, a German scientist who discovered a blue-producing microorganism in Berlin’s Spree River back in 1890.
What Chloris has done, more than a century later, is to bring that blue dye already existing in nature into a modern industrial context.
We use microbial fermentation–a controlled process in bioreactors–to produce this bio-based blue dye at scale. I often describe it as closer to brewing beer or making vitamins than to traditional chemical dye synthesis.
Claessen Blue is not a traditional plant extract, and it is not a fossil-based synthetic dye. It sets a new route: nature-inspired, but engineered for modern production.
But for us, the real test is whether it works in denim. That is why we work with mills and finishing partners to test Classen Blue through dyeing, washing, finishing and industrial trials.
So Chloris is a company bringing biotechnology into real denim manufacturing–not as a concept, but as a scalable color solution.
Why is it so revolutionary?
Denim blue has gone through different chapters. First there was local blue, like woad in Europe. Then natural indigo brought a broader source of blue. Later, synthetic indigo made denim truly industrial.
Today, the challenge is different as we want to create the same effect obtained through traditional indigo blue, though taking a more responsible path.
It is not about replicating conventional indigo. We are trying to open a new pathway: bio-based, industrially relevant, and designed to be validated by the denim industry.
Did you face any technical difficulties in reaching specific standards?
Denim is one of the most demanding categories for any new dye.
A denim dye cannot be judged only by the initial shade or a lab swatch. It has to go through the full denim journey—dyeing, oxidation, fabric construction, washing, finishing, garment look, color fastness, light exposure, rubbing, and aging.
This is exactly why Claessen Blue has been developed and validated inside real denim conditions, not only in the lab.
That’s why a bio-based blue dye can enter the denim system and respond to its key requirements based upon blue warp and white weft, wash-down behavior, finishing compatibility, performance, and scalability.
And Claessen Blue offers a new alternative to create blue denim with a more responsible origin while still working toward the industrial reliability that mills and brands need.
That is why, together with Denim Premiere Vision, we have developed “Redefining Blue,” an industry validation project, together with mills, laundries, and finishing partners.
Our goal is very practical and aims to obtain lower impact, reliable performance, and industrial scalability.
Is this dye behaving and performing exactly as indigo—apart from its bio-based origin?
Claessen Blue is designed to achieve denim’s well-known visual language based upon blue warp and white weft, washing, fading, finishing, and aging.
It can be evaluated through the same practical questions that matter to mills and brands: shade, wash-down, fastness, light performance, rubbing, finishing compatibility, and garment look. So, our aim is to offer a new blue option to denim that is bio-based, performance-driven, and industrially relevant.
Claessen Blue is a bio-based blue platform with its own identity. It allows denim to respect its heritage while opening a new chapter of blue.
Though indigo will always be part of denim history, and Claessen Blue will not be replacing that history overnight.
This is why our Redefining Blue project is testing new denim applications.
What partners, denim manufacturers, designers, and eventually brands is Chloris involving?
The project is designed as a value-chain collaboration. At this stage, we are working with different types of partners—denim mills, washing and finishing experts, and technical validation partners—and we are also in discussions with creative and brand-side players.
At the present stage, it needs to be tested within the value chain and eventually will be adopted by brands.
This is why we are operating through the Denim Premiere Vision platform. It brings the right people into the same conversation and can help us to test whether this new blue can become part of the denim industry.
When could we see jeans dyed with Chloris dyes in the market?
We are moving from technology validation toward real applications.
But I would be careful not to announce a fixed market date before our supply chain and brand partners are ready.
Though our project is no longer only a laboratory concept. We are already working on industrial validation and pilot applications, and we will see the first market-facing projects in the coming seasons.