Fiona's Secret World: Wearing the Pants

By Fiona Old

My Japanese friend Aya allows me to correct her pronunciation when she speaks English and to show her how to make an /r/ sound in consonant clusters where she tends to use the /l/ sound. So, when she said one day, “There are a lot of clouds over there”, I cruelly asked her to repeat the phrase “A crowd of clouds”: surely a nasty little phrase for an Asian rather new to English.

Brooklyn Clothing Co. on Davie Street in Vancouver is one of the pleasing spots to take men on my Looking Great for Guys shopping tour. Everything to do with denim is sold in this store. My conversation with Aya led my stream of consciousness to flow from pronunciation, to word origin, to the word denim.

Originally made in Nîmes, France, the sturdy fabric was called serge de Nîmes, and then simply denim. The French for Genoa, Italy is Gênes which gives us jeans. The first denim trousers were reputedly made in Genoa. Levi Strauss of Bavaria came to San Francisco in 1850 bringing with him a strong canvas to use for making tents for the forty-niners, so he thought. It was his turning to the manufacturing of durable pants that built his empire.

Brooklyn Clothing on Davie Street.
The small blue car parked out front is definitely not Fiona’s limousine!

Separately from this, the word dungarees, to identify heavy cotton pants such as overalls, came from Dongari Killa, the fort of what we call Bombay. The first cotton mill was established there in 1854 and the first cotton pants were worn by Portuguese sailors. These would have been somewhat larger than the itsy bitsy thigh length jumpsuits worn now by dancing queens in the clubs, along with 4” heels! Different again is the idea of the Jeans Beetle, or the Bonded Logic UltraTouch: the home insulation to replace fiberglass, made from remnants of fabric used in making blue jeans.

Incidentally, Brooklyn Clothing sells some bamboo and organic cotton labels. You know, Green Jeans!

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