Denim
- HEX
- #3B638C
- RGB
- 59 99 140
- HSL
- 210° 41% 39%
- CMYK
- 58 29 0 45
Denim or Cobalt?
Greyer and duller than cobalt, like worn jeans.
Language
Denim is probably short for serge de Nîmes, a twill named after the city in southern France, though the word's origin is debated. Jeans are named after Genoa, Gênes in French, whose tough cotton cloth was called jean.
History
On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and the tailor Jacob Davis got a US patent for work pants with copper rivets at the pocket corners, where seams tore. The blue jean was born, dyed with indigo.
Science
Jeans fade because indigo barely sticks. Only the lengthwise warp threads are dyed, and the indigo coats the outside of each yarn, leaving the core white. Wear rubs the blue away where you move, but the hue never shifts, only its depth. Once dyeing grew deep and even, makers had to fake the wear with stones and bleach.
Culture
Jeans were not born rebellious. For most of their history they were sensible workwear, and in Europe they took on their rebel aura only from the late 1960s. They also rescued a dye: synthetic indigo was losing ground to faster blues by the mid-1900s, until the jeans boom of the 1960s sent demand soaring.
Kin
- Indigo: The dye that makes jeans blue, and lets them fade
- Navy: Indigo blue dressed both naval officers and miners
In paintings
- The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai
- Houses of Parliament, Sunset, Claude Monet
- The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh
- Water Lilies, Claude Monet
Sources
- Levi Strauss & Co., 'The history of denim'
- US National Archives, 'Forever in blue jeans' (patent 139,121)
- Heddels, 'Ring dyeing'
- Balfour-Paul, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans (2011)
- Pastoureau, Blue: The History of a Color (2001)
- Wikipedia, 'Denim' (warp-dyed indigo, white weft)
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.