<img width="779" alt="" height="583" title="Image: null">&nbsp;Denim: Traces of Life in Blue By Eric Shaw&nbsp; Denim is blue—like sea and sky. &nbsp;It evokes the oceans and heavens. &nbsp;<img width="265" alt="" height="293" title="Image: null"> Humans deeply&nbsp;love blue—probably because it conveys the transcendence of the high and the deep. Nature offers this tinge only rarely on land—<a href="https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/12-elusively-blue-animals-the-rarest-critters-of-them-all" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/12-elusively-blue-animals-the-rarest-critters-of-them-all">mostly, just some frogs, birds and beetles have it</a>—but surveys tell us&nbsp;blue is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.livescience.com/34105-favorite-colors.html" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://www.livescience.com/34105-favorite-colors.html">humanity's favorite color.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; And the big <a href="https://www.tourmyindia.com/blog/top-spiritual-journeys-india/" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://www.tourmyindia.com/blog/top-spiritual-journeys-india/">transcendence-focused culture</a>&nbsp;of India is the earliest source&nbsp;our most celebrated blue dye—Indigo--and our&nbsp;most famous blue fabric--denim--too. <a href="http://www.historyofjeans.com/jeans-history/history-of-denim/" target="" rel="" title="Link: http://www.historyofjeans.com/jeans-history/history-of-denim/">Though “denim” is a colloquialism for di Nime</a>,&nbsp;(literally, “from Nime”)—a fashionable term Brits used to glamorize a durable cloth made in Nimes, France—denim itself was first approximated by an <a href="http://www.historyofjeans.com/jeans-history/history-of-dungaree-fabric/" target="" rel="" title="Link: http://www.historyofjeans.com/jeans-history/history-of-dungaree-fabric/">Indian fabric called dongri</a>—famed for making the sails on Columbus’ ships and the trousers that Indian, British, and U.S. sailors wore. &nbsp; Eventually these pants were called “dungarees”—a term still used by fashionable pants makers&nbsp;today. <img width="362" alt="" height="263" title="Image: null"> ------------------------ The geographical pedigree of the word “Indigo” also takes us to India. It comes from the Greek&nbsp;indikos&nbsp;meaning, “Indian dye.” For centuries, indigo plants were the world’s surest source of blue coloring even as countless poor experiments with <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-a-brief-history-of-blue" target="" rel="">snails, stones and plants</a>&nbsp;soldiered on, yielding weaker hues.&nbsp;&nbsp; After the Brits and their navy crushed the French indigo trade in the 1700s, they made it a prime cash crop in all their tropical possessions (including the U.S. south).A century and a half later, indigo-dyed American denim&nbsp;would establish a unique hold on the world’s imagination. ----------------------- <img width="359" alt="" height="559" title="Image: null"> Though denim milled in Nimes&nbsp;and Genoa (“jen-o-wa”--sourced&nbsp;for&nbsp;our&nbsp;word, “jeans”)&nbsp;maintained American market share, indigenous manufacture of the cloth <a href="http://www.levistrauss.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/A-Short-History-of-Denim2.pdf" target="" rel="" title="Link: http://www.levistrauss.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/A-Short-History-of-Denim2.pdf">emerged as early as 1789.</a>That year, we read of President George Washington touring a new mill for denim in Massachusetts. ----------------------- The story is oft-told, but a Bavarian, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Levi-Strauss-Gave-Jeans-World/dp/1625342292" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://www.amazon.com/Levi-Strauss-Gave-Jeans-World/dp/1625342292">Leob Strauss (who re-christened himself, “Levi”)</a>,&nbsp;shipped out to New York in 1848, then entrained over to gold-maddened San Francisco in 1853—where he &nbsp;launched our modern entrancement with denim’s blue a few decades later. He linked up with a Latvian from Reno, named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_W._Davis" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_W._Davis">Jacob W. Davis</a>, who fashioned a “dungaree” using rivets and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_duck">cotton duck</a>&nbsp;(what we’d call canvas), and they patented it&nbsp;together in 1873. Contrary to popular understanding, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-origin-of-blue-jeans-89612175/" target="" rel="" title="Link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-origin-of-blue-jeans-89612175/">denim jeans weren’t born then</a>, but a tough, riveted pant, sewn from brown canvas, was. &nbsp; <img width="295" alt="" height="482" title="Image: null"> Indigo-dyed denim first made its way into the celebrated “501” Levis in 1890—17 years later. ------------------------ Unfortunately, the oceans of blue dye made by India’s planters had just a few years to pour their wonderful color toward these classic jeans. Even as Strauss was pursuing a better pant, his German kinsman were pursuing better blues. <a href="http://colorantshistory.org/HistoryInternationalDyeIndustry.html" target="" rel="" title="Link: http://colorantshistory.org/HistoryInternationalDyeIndustry.html">By 1897, they could mass-manufacture blue as a chemical hue. &nbsp;</a>&nbsp;In less than a decade, synthetic blues sank mass indigo farming—plunging it toward obscurity like a French schooner to a watery tomb. &nbsp; --------------------------- In a traditional weave, denim’s blue warp threads (now stained synthetically) are diluted by a double-count of white weft threads. &nbsp;When washed, the blue threads shade the white. &nbsp;&nbsp;<img width="264" alt="" height="175" title="Image: null"> As most of us know, The fade-places we create in this complex cloth show a record of our activity over time. &nbsp; Blue in denim pleases us. &nbsp;Its cotton comforts the skin, and its selective wear-spots record our slow dissolve toward transcendence. Denim leaves traces in human history, and your life leaves traces in every piece of denim you wear. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Denim: Traces of Life in Blue

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