Denim an Introduction

Among all the textile products, no other fabric has received such a wide acceptance as denim. It has been used extensively by people of all ages, classes and genders. Denim is a hard and durable warp faced 3/1 twill cotton fabric, woven with indigo dyed warp and white filling yarns, having weights of 14½ ounces per square yard. It has been in use for over a century in the clothing industry, especially in the manufacture of overalls and trousers for hard labor, which has demonstrated its durability, which along with its comfort made denim jeans extremely popular for leisure wear, too. From the seventeenth century to the present day, denim has been used for making trousers, upholstery and awnings, and has been found in museums, attics, antique stores and archaeological digs. It is also considered as the fabric of hard work, expression of youth rebellion and the favorite of American cowboys.

The name ‘denim’ is thought to have originated from the French serge de Nimes, a fabric from the town of Nimes in France. It was made of silk and wool, but denim has always been made of cotton. There was another fabric, a fustian made of cotton, linen and/or wool blend, and the fustian from Genoa, Italy was called jean. By the eighteenth century, jean fabric was made completely of cotton, and used to make men’s clothing, valued especially for its property of durability even after many washings. The popularity of denim was also on the rise and it was stronger and more expensive than jean. Even though the two fabrics were very similar in other ways, they did have one major difference: denim was made of one colored yarn and one white yarn while jean fabric was woven with two yarns of the same color.

Over the years, Levi Strauss & Co. in the United States, has played a pivotal role in developing the denim jeans. The company was founded by Loeb Strauss, who was born in Bavaria, Germany in 1829. Along with his family members, he left Germany in 1847 and sailed to New York, where Loeb’s half-brothers were in business selling wholesale dry goods. For a few years, Loeb worked for his brothers and he changed his name to Levi Strauss sometime around 1850. In 1853, he decided to reinvent his life and took an adventurous journey to San Francisco, a city enjoying the benefits of the recent gold rush, and started his own dry goods business. Levi Strauss & Co., founded in 1853, was selling only clothes, boots and other dry goods to small retail stores. In 1873, together with a tailor named Jacob Davis, Levi was granted a patent to manufacture riveted for strength workwear made of blue denim. Soon they began manufacturing copper riveted waist overalls out of a brown cotton duck and blue denim, marking the birth of denim jeans. Even though it originated in Europe, the durability and adaptable form of denim found a perfect home in the United States, where soon it became an American icon.

Denim has had an incredible social and cultural influence on consumers and is considered an expression of youth independence, a symbol of opposition or an attitude towards life, and there is an international appeal of jeans among all age groups. Classical Hollywood movies with rebellious themes starring Marlon Brando and James Dean became symbolic of rebellious youth. Dean and Brando wore blue jeans and leather jackets in the movies, and this clothing style became a symbol of a defiant teen desiring freedom.

From the United States, denim fever has spread the world over, and the wide acceptance of denim garments everywhere makes it clear that denim is here to stay. This book on denim covers all of the important aspects of denim fabric manufacture, the manufacture and finishing of jeans, as well as novel applications and environmental aspects.