Fun fact of the Day: Colour me blue!
Part 2: Elusive Blue and the Virgin Mary
Today, we continue our story about the enticing blue! Creating a blue pigment was almost impossible. It was only discovered when traders from Venice found it in a very unlikely place — Buddhist temples in Afghanistan. Of all the places, Afghanistan? Yes! They had made it using the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli which was found in only one mountain range of Afghanistan. This was the first and the most expensive blue pigment ever and was named ultramarine or “beyond the sea” (since it was brought to Europe by sea from Asia). In fact, it was so expensive that the Catholic Church colour coded the Virgin Mary blue — In 12th century, the Roman Catholic Church dictated that all painters in Italy and across paint Virgin Mary’s robes using the very expensive ultramarine pigment imported from Afghanistan — earlier her robes used to be mostly black, grey, violet or dark green.
Blue was not even used for dyeing clothes — the only plant available for blue dye was woad which produced a poor quality dye — it was only used for workers’ clothes. Enter colonization and Indigofera — a plant genus which could finally produce blue dye! The elusiveness of blue dye led to Europe-America trade wars, fueled African slave trade and put pressure on colonies like India.
The Indigo plant could be grown only in a tropical climate and became a major cash crop for the British — often referred to as Blue Gold.
With a newfound supply from India, blue entered the fabrics of the upper middle class. And not long after, a certain Mr. Levi gave us jeans and a along with a certain Mr. James Dean made them inseparable from our wardrobe — But ever thought why are jeans blue? To think of it, blue is a weird choice for pants and as most of you will know, denim was meant to be used by workers, why colour it using such expensive Indigo dye?
Tomorrow, we’ll reach the final piece of our puzzle — our beloved blue jeans!
