Denim

Denim (which gets its name from the French city of Nîmes (de Nîmes)) is a rugged cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two (twi- "double") or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces the familiar diagonal ribbing of the fabric, which distinguishes denim from cotton duck. It is characteristic of any indigo denim that only the warp threads are dyed, whereas the weft threads remain plain white. As a result of the warp-faced twill weaving, one side of the fabric shows the blue warp threads, the other side shows the white weft threads. This is why jeans are white from the inside and what makes their fading characteristics so unique compared to every other fabric. (One can only assume that this was done in the first place to make the jeans less expensive, because less indigo is needed to dye the fabric.) Denim has been used in America since the late 18th century. The word comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called serge, originally made in Nîmes, France, by the André family. Originally called Serge de Nîmes, the name was soon shortened to denim. Denim was traditionally colored blue with indigo dye to make blue "jeans", though "jean" then denoted a different, lighter cotton textile; the contemporary use of jean comes from the French word for Genoa, Italy (Gênes), where the first denim trousers were made.