Denim

26th September 2021

Liz: Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a jodcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel: And I’m leaving.

(both laugh)

H: I’m Hazel, we are two friends who studied archaeology together and love history, and domestic history, and experimental archaeology, and just making things, and before our main topic we normally start by talking about what we have been making recently. So, do you want to start?

L: I’ve mostly just been working on existing projects, but my first successful soap swirl finally set, so I got to cut it, and now I have a fire-themed soap, and it smells like smoke, and it’s got glitter on top like a dragon’s hoard, and it’s called dragonfire, and I’m very happy

H: Oh yes! That is soap goals

L: Obviously I will be sending Hazel a bar

H: Aww yes! I thought that was just for your other D&D group

L: I’ve got to send you one

H: Aww

L: That’s the rules

H: Am I a valued customer?

(both laugh)

L: You pay me in friendship

H: (laughs) I wish that was legal tender. That sounds awesome. Yeah, I have not had such dramatic soap-making exploits, but I have been, I’ve started knitting the vest of my project that I mentioned last time, where I’ve spun the yarn, and I’ve dyed the yarn using hibiscus flowers, and now I’ve started knitting. It’s going pretty well, it’s a while since I’ve knitted a garment, so I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants gauge-wise because, for any non-knitters out there, your gauge is the tension, so if your gauge is too small, your garment will come out too small, so you have to measure it first. Well, you don’t have to, but a lot of people like to

L: Lot easier if you do

H: Yeah, my gauge was off, but I couldn’t really be bothered, so I’m just knitting a bigger size. So hopefully it’ll work out

L: If it doesn’t, you can always just frog it and try again

H: Yeah, that’s a nice thing about yarncrafts, you can always just rip it out and try again. No failure is permanent. There you go, there’s a soundbite

L: That’s one to do a sampler of, I think

H: Yes. So, I know what the topic is going to be today

L: I don’t know why you sound so disappointed. Is it because I said jodcast?

H: It’s because you said jodcast

L: (evil cackle)

H: Because we’ve talked about this subject, and I didn’t necessarily know you would be doing it today, but I sure do now, so go ahead

L: Yeah, it’s jeans and denim and that whole jam

H: I was just kind of, you know when there’s a pun and you’re speechless?

L: I didn’t do a pun that time!

H: It was delayed pun reaction

L: So here’s a fun game that I always like to play. When do you think the first fabrics known as jean arrived in Britain?

H: Oh, that’s an interesting one, ‘cause if you’d said US I might have been able to take a guess, but I’m going to say earlier than expected

L: I’ll give you a clue

H: Ok

L: Before the US existed

H: Ok, that is a lot earlier than I expected. Ok. So, is this what we would term denim, or is it just any cotton twill?

L: This is…ok, so denim comes from “de Nîmes” or from Nîmes

H: Ah, in France?

L: Mm-hmm

H: Wow

L: Whereas jean is from Gênes, the French name for Genoa

H: Oh!

L: So originally jean would be…it was a medium quality cotton twill, whereas denim was higher quality

H: Ah, so jeans and denim are actually kind of different things

L: They became interchangeable later because, like I said, it’s basically two qualities of the same fabric

H: Right, I always thought jeans…

L: Because Genoa made nicer fabric than Nîmes did

H: Ah, I always thought jeans was the garment, and not the fabric. That’s really interesting, that they are both the fabric

L: Indeed. So when do you think jean fustian arrived in Britain?

H: In that case, it would have to be after Western access to cotton, so…mid 18th century?

L: 1576

H: What?! Ok. I don’t know anything about textile history any more. Tell me more about jeans

L: Well, with the access to cotton thing, you have to remember that cotton evolved simultaneous…there’s wild cotton, not just from the Americas, but also from Africa and India. But yeah, in 1576 a shipment of jean fustian arrived in Barnstaple

H: Ok

L: It was generally dyed with indigo at this time

H: Ok, so the iconic dark blue was a part of it that early?

L: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s actually 17th century Italian paintings of people wearing blue denim

H: Wow

L: And it appears in examples of traditional Genoese dress

H: Oh my goodness, ok. So, what kind of clothing was it used for at the time?

L: So, because you could wear…I’m going to use jean and denim, I’m just going to call them all denim now unless I specify otherwise, because otherwise it’s going to be very confusing

H: Ok

L: So you can wear denim wet or dry. You’ve probably noticed it you wear denim jeans they get heavy but they don’t get soaked through when you get wet. So the Genoese navy actually wore their version of denim

H: Oh wow

L: Whereas the high quality denim you’d use for outer garments like smocks

H: Ok

L: And overalls, actually

H: That makes sense

L: We’re getting into dungarees very early

H: That makes sense, because I did know that it was originally work-wear material. I had no idea it was that early though, that’s really cool. I imagine…I would love to see any depiction of the Genoese navy in denim uniforms in the 17th century

L: There are paintings, I cannot find the name of the artist, but there’s a painter from the 17th century referred to as “The Master of Blue Jeans” who paints people in denim a lot

H: Ok

L: There’s examples on the Galerie Canesso website, if you’re interested

H: Ok, yeah, I’ll check that out later

L: It’s interesting, dungaree is, again, basically the same fabric, but made in India, and we’re not sure exactly when it became the name for the clothing, but we know that by 1891 Rudyard Kipling is referring to dungarees, as in the item of clothing

H: Ok

L: So yeah, jeans referring to the trousers pops up in 1795

H: That is still pretty early for jeans, the garment

L: It’s incredibly early. But yeah, this banker and his brother were selling clothing made from “bleu de Gênes”, or blue jean, fabric

H: Oh wow

L: To soldiers

H: Wow

L: In 1800. So between that and the Genoese army there’s a definite military association as well as general hard physical labour

H: Yeah

L: Which, I mean there’s a lot of overlap there, especially at that point

H: Wow

L: Yeah, so it stays mostly a military thing in the early 19th century, and the Levi Strauss, whose name might sound familiar to you

H: Rings a bell

L: Mr Levi’s starts a business selling…it’s a general good store, but includes selling bolts of cloth, including bleu de Gênes

H: Mm-hmm

L: And a tailor that he sells fabric to asks to bring him in as a business partner, selling denim jean clothing reinforced with copper rivets

H: Ah

L: To reduce tearing. And most jeans that you get now still have these rivets in them

H: Yeah, there is something more than just being denim trousers that makes it jeans, right? It is all the little metal pieces

L: Yeah, this is the point where Jeans ™, actually ™, Levi’s jeans become a thing

H: Right

L: They received a US patent for putting rivets on pockets, to stop the pockets tearing off, in 1873

H: Ok, my original thinking was 19th century, but I just didn’t realise the origins went back further

L: You were definitely right in terms of what we would think of as modern jeans

H: Yeah. It’s amazing that it’s because of the fabric, and not the garment. Ok, so where did it go from there?

L: So they start mass-producing these jeans in 1873. Interestingly, there are women’s ones as well, ‘cause women were also doing heavy labour, but they zipped up at the side rather than at the front

H: Ah

L: Which seems to just be a fashion thing, with a lot of women’s clothes fastening at the side at that point so you could do it up yourself. Earlier you have a lot of back fastenings that you needed help with. And obviously there are anatomical reasons a man might want to be able to undo just the front of his trousers

H: I’ve noticed that a lot of older, vintage women’s trousers and shorts seem to fasten at the side, rather than at the front

L: Yeah, it was just a thing for a while, especially in the 19th century. So yeah, manufacture of jeans tapers off a little bit during World War 2, because obviously they need to focus on making other things, but they start making what’s called waist-overalls. The idea is that they’re overalls but they only go up to your waist, which is basically high-waisted jeans

H: Yeah. So were they low-waisted before? Or just normal trouser height, I guess?

L: They were just kind of normal trouser height

H: Ok

L: Whereas these went right up the waist, which is quite high for trousers

H: I was just loving my image of Victorian hipster jeans

L: That is a beautiful image, but no, this is waist vs belly button, a matter of an inch or so

H: Ok

L: But yeah, so US soldiers would wear these waist-high overalls

H: Oh wow

L: And often wore them off-duty

H: Ah, is that where the fashion came from?

L: Mostly

H: Ok

L: So historically a lot of fashion is influenced by what the military is wearing

H: Yeah, like the 18th century, I guess sort of 19th century as well, mock-military jackets in women’s dresses comes to mind

L: Stuff like aviator glasses as well

H: Yeah, yeah, that’s a modern one

L: So in the 1955 film “Rebel Without a Cause”, which is very good, James Dean plays a middle class teen, who wears jeans as part of his bad boy aesthetic

H: Oh

L: Like “haha, I’m dressing like a regular working stiff, like a soldier”

H: Oh, kind of like how camouflage clothing is fashionable now

L: Yeah, it’s basically the equivalent of having a film come out about a middle class teen who wears camo all the time

H: Uh-huh

L: But because James Dean was this sex symbol, it became really popular for young men to wear jeans

H: Wow

L: And by the 70s it was completely normal

H: Ok

L: At least in the US. In Japan less so, because there was an incident where a student at Osaka University was, she was told off by her professor for wearing jeans in the classroom, and then they protested him, and it became a whole thing

H: Ok

L: But yeah, that’s basically when the whole “denim is normal casual wear for everyone” really became a thing, is in the 70s

H: Wow. That’s quite a fast uptake, in terms of becoming normal casual wear, from what was a working garment

L: Oh it absolutely is. And then you get some, you get things like David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie”, just a song about the concept of Americana, almost, and the spread of American culture, which, as you can guess from the title, is also about jeans. And you get famous musicians being seen in these tiny little jean shorts. I can’t remember who it was that I found a picture of wearing tiny little jean shorts in the 70s, but it was a thing

H: Oh wow

L: So jorts are also really old, relatively. Ok yeah, so in the 70s and 80s you get high fashion getting involved in jeans. You had places talking about distressed jeans. In the 30s distressed jeans were being talked about in Vogue, as a fashion statement

H: Ok. Must have been quite a statement at the time though

L: Oh definitely in the 30s. You’re wearing the working class clothes, and you’re intentionally making them look even scruffier

H: Yeah

L: But that’s also when you start to get a lot of cowboy films

H: Ah

L: So there’s a theory that that’s kind of related, you want to look like the cool cowboys

H: That would make sense

L: So yeah, you get the fashion house Fiorucci in the late 70s brings out the “Buffalo 70” jeans, which are skinny jeans

H: Oh

L: Which, you contrast that with the bell bottom jeans that were big at the time

H: Yeah

L: And you’ve got the sort of people that went to Studio 54 in skinny jeans, you’ve got Calvin Klein models wearing jeans that actually show off their shape

H: Ok, so there’s multiple styles of jean, not just, I guess, the ones you would think of as being from that era

L: Yeah, we’re definitely in “jeans are just another kind of trouser” at this point, and then this is also the point where, as a hippy thing, you get things like denim skirts coming in, denim jackets

H: Ah, I see

L: I guess technically denim jackets coming back. And also denim skirts coming back ‘cause, as I say, there’s examples of traditional Genoese dress in the 1800s that involve a denim skirt

H: Ok, so once jeans make the leap more workwear things start becoming fashionable

L: Yeah, it does seem to be tied to the whole 60s/70s “ah the working man, we must stand in solidarity” and all this stuff which, again, fits in with the Rebel Without a Cause thing I think

H: Mm-hmm

L: Of almost idolising the concept of being working class

H: It’s interesting that jeans then became such a symbol of capitalist elitism

L: Mmm, that…yeah, because the fashion labels get hold of it, people like Calvin Klein start making designer jeans

H: Mm-hmm

L: There’s a good quote, actually, from Eve Saint-Laurent, in 1983. “I’ve often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity, all that I hope for in my clothes”

H: Huh

L: People are worshipping at the altar of jeans at this point

H: (laughs) Yeah, that’s a really beautiful quote…about jeans

L: Yeah. But then, of course, you get the 90s. Everything is denim. Double denim, triple denim, it’s just everywhere. And it starts to regain that kind of slovenly association

H: I guess definitely the whole baggy clothes thing and

L: Yeah

H: Grunge. I guess it has that association

L: So then you get, I mean, now you get people who are phasing denim out of their wardrobes

H: Mm-hmm

L: Because it’s scruffy

H: Oh, interesting

L: But you also get people making beautiful art out of just experimenting with the concept of jeans

H: Mm-hmm

L: Like there’s an artist called Alexandra Armata, who I encourage you to look up

H: Ok

L: Who got 70+ pairs of jeans, and during lockdown, every day for 30 days made weird looking pairs of jeans, and jorts. And jirts!

H: Ok, that is amazing, but I hate that the project is called Quaranjean (laughs)

L: Yeah, look it up if you can, ‘cause you’ll find really amazing stuff

H: Yeah. Oh that sounds really cool

L: People are still…I was going to say people are still reinventing jeans because of that, but people are also still reinventing jeans in really odd ways. You might remember a couple of years ago the ones with, instead of a worn knee, a plastic knee window

H: What?

L: I don’t know if you remember those

H: What?! No I don’t!

L: Did you not see these?!

H: No! I don’t want my jeans to be a window to my knees

L: No it was…Top Shop was selling them in

H: Ok

L: In 2017

H: Oh, well, of course they would. Wow. I definitely recall the era of the jegging, which, none of those were made of denim, right?

L: Generally not, no. It doesn’t stretch

H: Yeah

L: They were quite stretchy, it was kind of a faux-denim. I’ve sent Hazel a picture of what were officially sold as the “clear-knee mom jeans”, because I can’t believe she missed them

H: Oh my goodness. That doesn’t look particularly comfortable

L: No. I worry about sweating and fogging up the plastic panel

H: Yeah. Hmm. Well, it’s not for me but, you know, each to their own jean

L: So slight side-note, now that we’re up the present, I was trying to find the earliest use of the word “jort”, because, especially those who are on tumblr will be aware of just changing the first letter of anything made of denim to a J is just a thing. Dare I say, a jeme. The earliest I can find was 2005, but that was just Google ngram viewer, because it’s surprisingly hard to find anything that will acknowledge the use of the word jort in an official dictionary context. But I did find out that, in 2017, a band named “Mom Jeans” wrote and released a song called “Jorts”, which was the same year that one of the Kardshians, I don’t remember which one, wore jorts to the Cannes Film Festival

H: Amazing. Is the song any good? Have you managed to listen to it?

L: It’s not for me

H: Ok

L: The band is described as emo-rock, which isn’t really my thing

H: Ok

L: But, you know, technically it’s fine. I’m sure if you like that sort of thing you may well enjoy the song Jorts by Mom Jeans

H: My goodness

L: Yeah, but I still like denim. I don’t…I think it’s unfair for people to call it scruffy, because it’s just fabric

H: Well yeah, and I suppose

L: Element of classism there I think, which I mean, there also was in the popularisation, in a weird way

H: Yeah

L: It’s kind of one side saying “I wanna look like the working class, they’re so cool” and the other side saying “oh no, you look working class”

H: But also I suppose Levi’s, which once sold to the working class, are now really expensive

L: Yeah

H: But I mean I suppose that’s the cycle with a lot of things

L: It is. We’ve talked about this phenomenon before with oysters and things

H: Yeah, and what is described as scruffy is very subjective as well, because a lot of the distressed jeans, despite being what you would traditionally think of as scruffy, are really expensive designer…

L: Yeah, distressed jeans generally cost more, I guess because it’s more work to make them and then distress them so they won’t fall apart

H: Yeah, it’s more labour. Whereas

L: Again, it’s that aesthetic of having worked hard, and having worn through clothes

H: Yeah. I can get that for free just by falling over

L: Well yeah. But at the risk of getting very political about trousers, that was my brief history of jeans

H: I liked it. It was wilder than I was expecting, and now I want to see historical denim

L: It was fun to research

H: I wanna see the historical denim

(both chuckle)

L: So what is our local larder this week?

H: Ok, it’s a very bite-sized one (chuckles)

L: (inaudible) about puns?

H: We, no…well. Well. I’ll leave that up to you, but I have a feeling that they may not fit the demographic of this podcast (laughs) So I’m going to take you out of the realm of the jean, and lead you to the domain of the Dorset knob

L: Ok

H: Ok. So, I recently went camping in Dorset for the weekend, which was very lovely. I haven’t been camping in ages, and it was a really good time, and I was looking up stuff to do in the area, as you will, maybe any local foods that I could try, because we’re all about regional foods on this podcast, and one of them that I found out about was the Dorset knob. Now, the Dorset knob is kind of a biscuit

L: Ah, it’s one of those local foods

H: Yeah, it’s kind of a biscuit bread, but more of a biscuit. I’ll just explain how it’s made, which is probably easier. It’s about, they’re about the size of a scone, more or less

L: Ok

H: A small one. Although they can be smaller as well. They’re made from

L: Sorry, but “the size of a small scone or smaller” is the least helpful size description I’ve ever heard

H: Ok. I mean, it’s hard to describe exactly, but just…around the size of a scone, I guess, depending on how big you like your scones. Anyway

L: (giggles)

H: They’re made from bread dough, with extra sugar and butter, and they’re baked three times. So they apparently get…I was unfortunately not able to get hold of any on my visit to dorset, which is a travesty and I will definitely make up for it, but we just didn’t have time, and yeah, so they’re apparently just very dry and crumbly because of this extra baking

L: Yeah, ‘cause before you said baked three times it almost sounded like a brioche

H: Exactly, yeah, so almost a rich dough but then just baked really dry, so they do last a bit longer. They are called the Dorset knob because, well, there’s multiple explanations for this, but the two most common ones that I found was because they’re about the size of a doorknob, and also because they look like Dorset knob buttons, which are another interesting thing we can talk about on the podcast at some point, but basically they’re just a local manufacture of button. So yeah, that’s where the name comes from, but, as you can imagine, it has been a very popular joke amongst school kids for years. I couldn’t find anything definitive on how old they are as a regional food, but they seem to be at least 19th century, because it’s noted that they were one of the favourite foods of the author Thomas Hardy, who famously lived in Dorset, according to his parlour-maid. So you kind of need to eat them with something, because they’re so hard and dry. Originally they were made with leftover bread dough that had kind of fermented a little bit, and the extra sugar and the butter would be added, and then they would be made into the Dorset knobs

L: So the sugar’s almost preventing it from being a sourdough

H: Yeah. And so they would be used to use up the leftover bread dough, but also you can keep them in the cupboard for a while, and apparently the farming families would eat them for breakfast by soaking them in…by pouring tea and sugar over them, which is…

L: That doesn’t sound like the worst thing

H: So almost cereal, really

L: Yeah. Just a weird Weetabix

H: Yeah, but they are more commonly eaten with cheese, now, especially blue cheese, which sounds quite nice

L: Mmm

H: Cheese and crunch

L: Who doesn’t love a cheese and crunch

H: Exactly. As far as I know, there is only one commercial producer of the Dorset knob left, which is Moores Biscuits, that had a shop in the village of Morcombelake, near Bridport, in Dorset, but that closed a few years ago, and now they have a shop in Bridport, and they’ve been making them since the 1850s, I believe

L: Oh wow

H: Yeah. But the bakery itself was established in 1880, and the Dorset knob is not the only thing they produce

L: I did assume that part

H: But it is one of the most famous. Sorry?

L: I said “I did assume that part”

H: Yeah (laughs) but I, I mean, one of the reasons is there’s not…because of the process is quite time consuming, obviously, you have to make the special dough, it has to be shaped by hand and baked three times, and it’s not really cost-effective to make them all year round, so they’re apparently only produced during January and February, and then that is the stock of Dorset knobs for the year. So they are apparently quite well-known in Dorset, and relatively beloved, and there are…we love a good regional food related sport competition on this podcast

L: Oh, do tell

H: And there is a good one in this Local Larder. The Dorset Knob Throwing Competition is an official event that takes place every year in the village of Cattistock, and apparently it is now the Dorset Knob Throwing and Frome Valley Food Fest

L: They had to bulk it out a little bit

H: So, sadly…well they made it a whole, it’s a day out

L: Ok

H: According to the website, dorsetknobthrowing.co.uk, the Dorset knob throwing event is packed with fun attractions, and also hosts Frome Valley Food Fest. So apparently, because they’re so hard, and just about the right size, they’re really satisfying to throw, and do quite well, so, again, according to this website, the format of the competition is “Three knobs are thrown underarm and the furthest is measured at its final resting place; unlimited entries are available per contestant and there are no age restrictions”. So fun for all the family

L: That is beautiful, and I want to see a toddler throw a biscuit so much right now

H: I know! And there is a picture at the top of this webpage of a small child joyfully hurling a Dorset knob through the air. There is also, and I will link this on the podcast, there is a promotional film, a promotional short film, hosted on Youtube, for the Dorset Knob Throwing Competition, so I am sure you will all want to have a look at that

L: That’s beautiful

H: It is amazing. And they are holding the event next year. I think they’ve had to cancel it for a couple of years, but it is being held on the 1st of May 2022, if any of you find yourselves in the area I…if anyone does go to that please show us. That’s amazing

L: Will you be going?

H: Probably not, because that is also the Hastings May Day festival, and I don’t like to miss that

L: Ah, that is fair

H: But I don’t know. Maybe one year. I think it would be worth the trip. Maybe we should put it on the Bread and Thread Road Trip

L: One day this podcast will be huge, and we will go on that road trip

H: So yeah, that is…you now know of the Dorset knob, and I hope that you are happy

L: So, if you want to help us get one step closer to being able to do a Bread and Thread road trip in the far distant future, we are on Patreon, where you can get access to a Discord server, monthly recipes, and, if you give us £10 a month or more, we will make a bonus episode on anything that you want, whether or not it’s relevant to the subject of the podcast. That’s patreon.com/breadandthread

H: We are also on Twitter, at breadandthread, where you can find teasers for upcoming episodes, things that we talk about on the podcast we will link there, we generally keep up with things in the domestic history world there. We are also on youtube, breadandthread as well, we have pretty solid branding. You can find audio episodes up on there, and tumblr, I believe.

L: Yep, tumblr, also at breadandthread. If you have an episode suggestion, or just want to say hi, want to berate me for not being able to pronounce French despite studying it for five years in school, I was not good at French, you can message us on one of those, or email breadandthreadpodcast@gmail.com

H: And we will see you next time