👖 Blue denim jeans wasn’t invented by the big brand names you know now or the Wild Wild West, formally known as the “negro cloth” the twill weave cotton cloth was originally used for clothing slaves shipped to the West, they in turn used indigo — a temperamental tropical plant native to the Caribbean and West Africa to dye the cloth. Not only was imagery of those who wore jeans whitewashed, but the history of production was, too: from who taught Americans how to cultivate and use indigo to who exactly even invented coarse, blue cotton pants in the first place. Indigo can be traced back to Dungri, India, (carried on colloquially through dungarees), where workers as far back as the 17th century wore tough blue pants dyed with indigo; Genoans (where the word jeans derives from) in Italy made waxed work pants; and in Nimes, France, indigo-dyed cloth was called "de Nimes" (the root of the word denim).