The blue in blue jeans

Portrait of Adolf von Baeyer

Blue jeans are a part of American culture.  James Dean wore them and defined cool.  Brooke Shields wore them tight and made them look good.

The indigo color in blue jeans, however, would have not been possible without the help of German chemist Adolf von Baeyer.

Baeyer devised a method to create synthetic indigo dye--the color blue used for blue jeans--which earned him a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1905.

Sources: http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/chemists/adolf-von-baeyer-info.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_dye; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_von_Baeyer

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