Blue Gold: Jeans, Indigo, & Haute Couture

Tens of thousands of tons of the blue indigo pigment are produced each year around the world, in an attempt to quench an insatiable thirst for the eternal “blue gold” of fashion: the jeans, which this year celebrates 145 years of cult following, and is estimated to generate sales of 450 million pairs a year. This lecture plots a blue trail through time, geographies, and cultures following jeans and its precursor, the indigo dye.