During the time period covered by this study, Indigo was among the few dyes that had the advantage of adhering to most fibers without a mordant.(1) Its deep blue color resisted fading from sunlight, washing and aging, which made it perfectly suited for many heavily worn utilitarian garments such as "blue" jeans, which were colored with this natural dye until the last few years of the nineteenth century.

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(1) Agustí Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in Industrial Europe (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 17.