From: Randal <digitas-AT-panix.com>
Date: 27 May 2009 13:39:47 UTC   (04:39:47 PM in author's locale)
To: "The Graphics List" <graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org>

At 7:13 AM +0300 5/27/09, arths wrote:
>The colour of the blue jeans, as we know them, it is in fact a washed indigo (I am not talking about pre-washed jeans...). The original colour was a deep, dark purple-blue.
>

Actually, on reading further in the wikipedia entry, I see that there is in fact no direct relationship between the spectral color indigo and the dye indigo. According to the entry, it was Isaac Newton himself who thought that the color band between blue and violet looked like indigo, but apparently there are those who don't think this should be considered a separate color. Additionally, the article notes a very different color match for spectral indigo and indigo dye.

I am very interested now -- blue jeans color seems very different from what I think of in reference to "born to the purple" and other associations with the once scarce and expensive purple dye? Is this just the difference in washing? Is synthetic indigo really different from the natural dye? I don't think I have ever really seen real, natural indigo, and I assume this is probably one of those colors that can't really be reproduced in CMYK or RGB.

Has anyone here really seen verifiable natural indigo? And is it similar to the color of blue jeans?

-- Randal

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