Talk:Denim

Popularity

"Denim jeans have consistently been fashionable in American culture" ... not literally true of course, but does anyone have a dependable angle on how denim made its way first into US middle-class culture and finally into fashion? --Wetman 09:40, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hemp?

Not disagreeing with the hemp argument...but does it really have a place in this article?

Origins

There are two stories from the 1960's that are a part of the lore as to how denim came back from near extinction to being a permanent part of the culture. One is that the film Italic textEasy Rider" with it's romanticizing of motorcycles and pot-smoking, made wearing faded jeans into a fad. Previously, blue denim was made so that it didn't fade and I have seen sample nearly a century old that are the original color. The faded-blue patina of Indigo is what really caught on. The other story was that construction workers in New York would clean the sand and cement from their overalls by putting them into a cement mixer with gravel, which faded the denim and made it very soft and this is where stonewashing came from. The fashion side of the story is that a famous fashion designer walked by a construction site where these tanned, muscular construction workers were in their faded denim overalls and she found it quite erotic. Harry Mercer

[[Agree with Harry Mercer, but i believe, popularity of denim is - in denim itself, 1/one feel more secure in denim jeans, 2/since the denim is dyed with indigo the color saturates each time you wash it - it gives a new look on every wear. 3/Denim fabric got a depth - means, designers got a great canvas, they can do rinse was only for darker shades, stone washes for med to light shades, bleach for lighter shades, also a great length of other designing things which are really in from last few years, like sand blasting, hand sanding, whiskers, chevrons, pinching, bursting, grinding, resin finishes and a lot more. Babar 25 Mar '06]]

James Agee, in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), written while touring the South with Walker Evans, has a passage about denim beginning like a blueprint for what the overalls would become with time. So the color was certainly washing out of demin overalls during Depression years. --Wetman 08:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

de Nimes?

Sorry, but isn't the origin of denim from the French town of (de) Nimes?

DeadMansShoes 02:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, despite the article asserting that it came from "Serge de Nimes", the Levi Strauss website says:

"There still remains the question of how the word “denim” is popularly thought to be descended from the word “serge de Nimes.” Serge de Nimes was made of silk and wool, but denim has always been made of cotton. What we have here again, I think, is a relation between fabrics that is in name only, though both fabrics are a twill weave. Is the real origin of the word denim “serge de nim,” meaning a fabric that resembled the part-wool fabric called nim? Was serge de Nimes more well-known, and was this word mis-translated when it crossed the English Channel? Or, did British merchants decide to give a zippy French name to an English fabric to give it a bit more cachet? It’s likely we will never really know."

Extracted from [1], History-Denim.PDF. Quickos (talk) 18:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The OED2 says that denim was originally the woollen or silk variety, but "now (orig. U.S.)" is the cotton type. Levi Strauss's reference to 'nim' is a red herring, since serge de Nim was (OED2 again) merely the old anglicised spelling of serge de Nîmes. --Heron (talk) 13:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was going to comment on! No, it wasn't, you jerk! Denim was invented in the souhwestern United States for miners! It is a 100% American culture item that the rest of the world has adopted over time over it being exported so much from the United States, and featured so much in American media! You didn't even give a citation for your BS claim! I might not have one either, but this is taught as a historic fact in Arizona! Don't jack our historical, and cultural stuff! Another item originating in the southwestern United States is the "cowboy" hat. Stetson hats are supposed to have been the first of which. Likewise, the hat has also gone global, with herders all over the world wearing them. And, if "denim," the word, has a French origin... French are a very large portion of the first settlers of the United States, along with Spanish, and Basque. French culture is also viewed as "fancy" by American culture, which could have inspired it's use in American fashion. But, there's no proof it's of a French origin either, unless you have proof to share. Which you must not, because you didn't give any. --174.19.234.173 (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Banned in Bucketsville

"In 1946, the jean was frowned upon by the residents of Buckettsville. They felt that the pant drew unnecessary attention, and thus enacted a dress code requiring neutral colored wool pants, the wool taken from their world renowned sheep, along with penny loafers." Can some appropriately sourced text about actual bans on jeans replace this text? --Wetman 16:54, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge of dry denim into this article

Do not merge. They should be two separate articles. --Liface 04:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Why? Dry denim appears to be just a different kind of denim MidgleyDJ 08:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that they should be merged. "Washed" denim and "dry" denim are denim. Period. What happens to them afterwards is immaterial. It's like saying that what happens to it afterwards is most important. Denimadept 20:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but both "dry denim" and "selvage denim" are both denim. I don't see why these items need separate articles, whereas they'd make good sections of this article. Denimadept 16:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I just noticed that the Dry denim article contains a section on "selvage denim"! This is silly. Denimadept 16:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with merge. --Liface 22:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles merged! I've edited the text as I can to reconcile it to itself, but I probably missed something or other. I'm not a fabric adept, just the Denimadept 19:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

“Selvage denim (sometimes called selvedge denim) is a type of denim which forms a clean natural edge that does not unravel.” That is exactly like 100 % of all denim (or any other fabric) produced. From the presence of a self-edge in a pair of jeans you can conclude nothing about the quality of denim used.

These “lower grade denims that have separate wefts” are produced how? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.228.240.6 (talk) 22:20, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Mavi Jeans

This company makes Dry Denim products? Denimadept 13:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Users of denim??

Do we really want a list of all companies which use denim for something? I suggest that if we're going to have a list of manufacturers, it should be a list of companies who make denim cloth, not who use it for things. I'm looking for consensus here. - Denimadept (talk) 20:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Until then though, the manufacturing section should be removed, because it's not in encyclopedia style. --Gyrcompass (talk) 03:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking for input. Having the section there prompts for it. I'm not a fabric person, so I don't know where the stuff comes from. My username has other sources. - Denimadept (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Is hickory cloth a denim , are dungarees made of denim

It's not clear from the paragraph on hickory cloth if it is actually a denim.

Similarly - Are/were dungarees made from denim ?

What type of twill (N/M) can be called denim ? Rod57 (talk) 19:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

the color of denim

Is denim necessarily indigo? I remember stretch denim jeans for men (at a time when men commonly wore very tight pants), and it was a light tan color. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 21:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

Denim Garment Wet Processing for the link —Preceding unsigned comment added by Engr.Anwaar (talk • contribs) 07:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Denim / Jeans differentiation

The dry and selvedge denim sections in the article seem to be about the use of denim in jeans, not necessarily the fabric itself. I know that aficionados prefer to refer to their jeans as denim, kind of like the distinction between "movies" and "film", but I don't think that division is encyclopedic.

I think a simple re-organization of the two articles might be in order, keeping all specifics about jean manufacture in jeans, and all specifics about denim as a general cloth in denim. What does everyone think?

(now that I am starting discussions on talk pages I guess it's time to sign up. My next post will be signed from an acct.) 68.162.167.207 (talk) 18:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that makes lots of sense. We don't talk about denim shirts or cloaks or gloves or hats, just pants. So that shouldn't be here. - Denimadept (talk) 19:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the article in more detail. It's a mess. There's lots of text in the "references" section which probably doesn't belong there. Dungarees are not relevant to denim. As far as I can tell, neither is Hickory cloth, unless it's another name for denim. Fits and types of jeans belong in the jeans article, not here. Oh, this is gonna be ugly. I'll comment out things which I think shouldn't be here but which I have doubts. I'll remove things which simply don't belong. - Denimadept (talk) 23:57, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've reworked it a bit. It's still not what I'd nominate as a Good Article. Two of the references, one to G. Washington in Beverly, Massachusetts, and one to the Jeans Vehicle, need help. The G. Washington one says nothing about denim, just about a cotton mill. The Jeans Vehicle one looks an awful lot like a blog-style page. Worthy as an external link, but not as a reference. Or have I miscalled that one? - Denimadept (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

effects on hygiene and bacterial growth on not washing jeans

The current "source" (4, Stolte, Elise [1], "The Edmonton Journal", January 20, 2011, accessed January 28, 2011.) is not actually available on the referenced website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.60.9 (talk) 04:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Stretch denim

Can anyone expand the explanation of stretch denim? I don't understand how adding a percentage of stretchy fibres can make the whole fabric stretchy. When the fabric is stretched, all of the fibres (not just the special stretchy ones) need to elongate. Is there some difference in the weave as well? Macboff (talk) 16:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

"Stretch" denim actually uses the elastic fibers to keep the denim cloth contracted. In reality, the denim is longer than it appears; a 20cm wide section of denim may have 22cm of denim with 20cm (when contracted) elastic fibers. When worn, the elastic fibers may then stretch to up to 22cm. If you used 22cm elastic (when contracted), the pants wouldn't stretch beyond normal wear. --67.248.246.4 (talk) 18:05, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Raw Denim Fade Terminology

Is possible if I add a small section regarding the different types of fades that raw denim enthusiasts try to achieve through long periods of wear without wash? It would be a good addition to the Raw Denim section since most people try to achieve these fades with this particular type of denim. Denim terms

What about the white weft??

What would indigo denim be without the white weft? As far as I can see, this fact lacks altogether. (?) It would also be interesting to explain why this was done. Without a white weft, denim wouldn't fade half as well as it does, and "back in the old days", when the first jeans were created, fading wasn't really what people desired, or? Actually, I came here to get an answer to that question! ;-) Yeager-90 (talk) 02:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

What language does "twi-" mean "two"?

In the first paragraph, there's a reference to the number of weft threads that asserts "twi-" is "two" -- but it's not explained what language that's supposed to be from, and "twi-" never appears again in the article. Someone with knowledge of the matter (or at least of where to investigate) should probably clarify that in the article.  :) —Xyzzy☥the☥Avatar 11:47, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Twill?

Is it worth noting that denim is usually done in a warp faced (often 3/1) twill, rather than a balanced one? Da Next Pope (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, surely denim usually refers to a 3/1 warp faced twill, but it would be good to find some references to back this up --catslash (talk) 00:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Will do some research and try and find some references beyond the mention of it being warp faced on the Twill article. Da Next Pope (talk) 12:35, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

So late 18th century or mid 19th???

". Denim has been used in the USA since the late 18th century. It was introduced to California by Levi Strauss—who in 1853 during the California Gold Rush—imported denim fabric from France and used it to create sturdy, solid trousers, that would later become the ubiquitous blue jeans." - late 18 th century is more than 50 years earlier than 1853, so something is wrong here.195.150.224.69 (talk) 22:59, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, your reading of the passage. California is not the entirety of the US, and indeed by the 1850s had just been admitted as a state having been US territory for less than a decade. Denim had been in use on the eastern seaboard among sailors and field workers since shortly after independence, when US-French relations were at their strongest. oknazevad (talk) 01:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Denimu Art Cheyenne Diner.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:21, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Potential sources from a rolled-back addition

I'm reverting

some extensive additions made today by an anonymous editor. The additions read like an essay rather than an encyclopædia article, and some claims are not sourced in-line making them hard to verify. I think it will be easier to remove these additions and potentially re-add any content deemed relevant and beneficial rather than try to edit the language into a more usable form. To this end, I'm leaving there the sources being removed in my rollback. —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 13:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Is the microscope image reverse dyed?

I know hardly anything about textiles or weaving, so I could easily be wrong. The article intro says that, for common indigo denim, “the warp thread is dyed while the weft thread is left white”. But, it appears to me that the microscope image (by the Weaving section) depicts a version with a white warp and an indigo weft. If so, perhaps a closeup of the typical variety might serve as a better visual aid for understanding the description than an example of a less common variant.Starling2001 (talk) 16:07, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Starling2001: I think it’s simply the reverse side of the fabric (i.e. the side that faces the interior of a sewn garment). —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 17:57, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The threads seem unusually translucent, straight, and uniform in color and diameter, but it's probably new Mercerised cotton. LoneStarNot (talk) 00:12, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Vehicles Section

The vehicle section goes on for three paragraphs in quite a lot of detail about a now defunct car brand. Why? Most of this information is unnecessary and unrelated to the article, so I suggest the section should either be cut down significantly or removed altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Kightley (talk • contribs) 00:54, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the point about excessive details. The content about the AMC not even using denim makes it irrelevant for this article (maybe appropriate for Levi_Strauss_&_Co.#Cultural_impact). The Jalopnik ref lists four vehicles supposedly using denim interiors: "the Gremlin Levi's editon, the Jeans Beetle, the Fiat 500 by Diesel (clothing company, not oil-burner, though, confusingly, there is a diesel option), and the Mitsubishi i Kurashiki edition" Pinging CZmarlin, who added most of that section, to the discussion. Schazjmd (talk) 16:34, 14 March 2022 (UTC)