Denim Expert Piero Turk Calls for Simpler, Less Wasteful Fashion

A reset, not a replay

At Kingpins, where the walls are usually crowded with swatches and the air feels thick with denim bragging rights, Piero Turk is arguing for the exact opposite of the industry’s default setting. His blunt read is that the flood of new denim qualities is overkill, and he is not being polite about it: “It is actually nonsense.” He has spent roughly 40 years in denim and says the endless variation is not innovation so much as excess, a system that burns through raw materials for the sake of looking new.

The point matters because the trade show model has trained brands to chase novelty for its own sake. Each season, Kingpins in Amsterdam gathers thousands of denim qualities, with manufacturers presenting about 50 new developments, but Turk’s argument cuts through the spectacle: “Nobody needs all those variations.” If denim is supposed to be a wardrobe workhorse, then the most radical move right now may be editing, not adding.

One fabric, many lives

That is where One Denim comes in. The project was conceived during the pandemic, first shown at the 2022 trade show, and has returned at every October edition since. Turk’s method flips the usual sourcing logic: instead of starting with a mountain of fabrics, he chooses one carefully selected quality and asks what can be done with it. The whole exercise is built to prove that one good base can carry a full collection if the wash, cut, and finishing are smart enough.

The first edition with Prosperity Textile pushed that idea hard, producing ten different pocket versions from the same denim, each treated with a different wash. Later collaborations kept widening the argument. In the Kipas edition, Turk chose a pure cotton fabric that felt softer thanks to a special treatment, then pushed it beyond jeans into jumpers and T-shirts in different shades of blue. The styling cue came from American sports such as ice hockey and football, which gives the whole thing a clean, collegiate edge instead of the usual denim nostalgia routine.

The collection has also shown its range through other partners. A 2024 collaboration with Cone Denim required washes to be done at Tonello in Italy, while the resulting lineup included five-pocket jeans and trucker jackets alongside vests, T-shirts, and dresses. That is the smart part of One Denim: it does not flatten fashion into sameness. It proves that restraint can still produce texture, contrast, and range without pretending every wash needs to be its own invention.

Why less choice is starting to look premium

Turk’s argument lands because the denim market has spent years treating more options as an automatic good. More washes, more blends, more surface treatments, more fake novelty. One Denim pushes back by calling that what it often is: waste. The Kingpins framing is explicit about the cost, saying the project addresses excess waste of money, time, energy, and water, and Turk says one fabric can make “almost everything.” That is not austerity for its own sake. It is a cleaner production model with a sharper product story.

For shoppers, this is where the countertrend gets interesting. Denim marketing can feel like a translation test, with fabric jargon and wash language doing more to confuse than to help. If brands lean into fewer, better foundations, buying gets easier: a pair of straight-leg jeans that really holds shape, a jacket that works over tees and knits, a skirt that does not depend on gimmicky finishing to justify itself. Less choice, in other words, can become a premium experience because the value is easier to see and harder to fake.

There is also a practical sustainability edge here that does not need a slogan. Fewer fabrics means less duplication across mills, fewer dead-end developments, and less pressure to invent a new textile story every season. Turk’s view is not anti-design. It is anti-waste, and that is a different and more useful fight. In a market that has made “newness” feel mandatory, One Denim suggests the grown-up move is to make one thing well, then prove it can do the work of ten.

The new denim flex is discipline

The bigger shift here is not just about fabric. It is about status. For years, denim flexed through abundance, more treatments, more distressing, more hybrid materials, more claims. Turk is betting that the next premium signal is discipline: a tighter edit, a better hand feel, a fabric that survives more than one styling mood, and a production story that does not waste resources to create the illusion of progress. That is why his idea feels so pointed right now. It is not a nostalgia play. It is a reset, and denim could use one.