The Ancient Roots of Blue Jeans: A Surprising History
The iconic garment is more than 600 years old
Baggy, skinny, bell-bottomed, high-waisted, dark or sandblasted: almost everyone owns at least a pair of jeans. Most people have worn a jean jacket, shirt, or skirt, and — if you lived through the fashion embarrassment that was the early 2000s — you might have even donned a full denim outfit à la Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears.
But did you know the ubiquitous textile was already in fashion in the 15th century, when the Genoese Navy (the Republic of Genoa’s military fleet) started equipping its sailors with it?
At the time Genoa was already famous around Europe for producing a durable, deep blue cotton fabric, ideal for making sturdy work clothes for fishermen, miners, and workers in general (Gênes, the French word for Genoa, is the origin of the word “jeans”). When the Navy started employing it, its popularity soared.
By the 17th century, jean was one of the most common textiles used by working-class people in Northern Italy: an artist now nicknamed The Master of the Blue Jeans captured its use in a series of paintings depicting…
