Community Couture: Denim

Denim gets its name from the French city of Nimes. The word comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called serge, originally made in Nimes by the André family. Originally called Serge de Nimes, the name was soon shortened to denim. Denim was traditionally coloured blue with indigo dye to make blue jeans. The contemporary use of "jean" comes from the French word for Genoa, Italy. The first denim trousers were made here. Denim is is a rugged cotton twill textile, the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This produces the familiar diagonal ribbing identifiable on the reverse of the fabric. At the beginning of the 19th century, American gold miners wanted clothes that were strong and did not tear easily. To meet this demand from the miners a man called Leob Strauss started a wholesale business, supplying clothes to people who required it. Leob and a Nevada tailor joined forces to patent an idea the tailor had for putting rivets on stress points of workman’s waist high overalls, commonly known as jeans. Strauss later changed his name from the rather plain Leob to the extremely recognisable Levi!