'Serge de Nîmes'
In fashion history, jeans and denim history continues to baffle us. No one truly knows the perfect answer to where jeans began. As so often happens fashions often emerge together in various parts of the world and are the result of the sudden availability of a new fabric, cloth, dye or technique.
But we do know that the phrase denim jeans is thought to derive from several sources. The majority of source books suggest that denim derives from the English translation of the South of France French phrase 'Serge de Nîmes'. Denim fashion history is thus associated with Serge de Nîmes.
It may well be that the fabric which was made in France also had a version made locally in England, and was called by the same name of denim, in the same way that Cheddar cheese is called cheddar all over the world. The Serge de Nîmes was originally a wool silk mix, twill weave. Certainly by the 19th century in England, denim had a white warp and a navy woof (weft). Denim was considered a hard wearing sturdy fabric, ideal for heavy labouring.
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