Looking back over a century of American style, denim deserves a round of applause.
For more than 150 years, denim has been the foundation of America's wardrobe and will continue in that role in the new millennium, said the Fashion Association, a nonprofit trade association of fashion retailers, manufacturers and textile firms.
The definition of denim: Denim is a very heavy twill fabric woven with tightly twisted cotton yarns. Denim was originally loomed and worn in the south of France. It was called serge de Nimes, for the French town of Nimes. The word "denim" is derived from de Nimes. The origin of the term "jeans" is found in the French language. Sailors in the Italian port of Genoa (Genes in French) were some of the first to wear pants made from denim fabric.
From overalls to jeans: Levi Strauss, a Bavarian-born emigre, sewed the first pair of jeans for miners during the California gold rush of 1849. He called them "waist-high overalls." Strauss made the jeans from heavy brown canvas. When he ran out of canvas, he switched to denim, which was being manufactured by a mill in New Hampshire.
Why blue jeans are blue: In the 1800s, the weavers from Nimes dyed their denim fabrics an indigo color made from the fermented leaves of the Indigofera plant. It was a completely natural dye until a German chemist created a synthetic version in 1897.
The way jeans are made: Jeans are made when cotton is spun into yarn. The yarn is dyed (usually with synthetic indigo dye) by dipping the warp yarn into dye baths. Then the yarn is made into fabric by interweaving the warp (length) and weft (width) yarns together on a loom.
How much denim is produced today: U.S. denim mills produced 1 billion 92 million square yards in 1998, over 350 square miles, according to Jeanswear Communcations, a partnership of U.S. denim mills and allied suppliers.