Levi Strauss | Who Wore That First

July 17, 2011 by admin

Image via Wikipedia

You slip them on just about every day. You have for years. Do you know where the blue jean comes from, though? Those pants you enjoy wearing and that come in so many styles, colors and patterns, have a long history of providing function, durability and style to people.

Learning the Jeans’ History

You will find it in everything from baby costumes to dresses. Jean material is something that started long ago, when a man named Levi Strauss first arrived in San Francisco in 1860.

The jeans’ invention stems from necessity. Strauss noticed the need that gold miners had as they worked out in the mines and fields for durable trousers. After selling canvas products, he later created pants using a product called denim. This added more comfort to the pants.
The first denim material, though, was not from Strauss. Rather, manufacturers began creating denim in Genoa, Italy.
Adding copper rivets happened to the jean pants in 1893. The addition helped to create more strength in the stress points of the pants. Work tools of those who wore these pants pulled at these locations as they hung on pockets and belt loops.
The name “jeans” hit in the 1920′s. It stems from the French Revolutionary period when the term “jeans,” which sounds like “johns” in French, then applied to the heavy cotton fabric created in Italy.

It would be some time before the material became more commonplace in American society. With the advent of fashion designers, though, the creation of this material was more for fashion than for functional use by the middle of the 1960′s.

Strauss and de Nimes

March 24, 2011 by admin

Many people know the story of Levi Strauss—or so they think, but did you ever wonder where the terms denim and jeans come from?

Levi Strauss—originally Leob Strauss—took an already existing fabric and used it to create clothing for the gold miner. Denim had already become common in the 1700s, used to clothe slaves, traders, and farmers because it was a strong, durable material. It was often blue because indigo was one of the more plentiful natural dyes.

During the California gold rush, miners wanted durable clothing that would hold up to the rigors of digging in the earth and wading in streams. They did not have their wives or local seamstresses around to fulfill that need. Strauss saw the need and started providing denim pants at wholesale to outfitters.

The rivet, which is so famous for its first use on Levis, was not invented by Levi Strauss. It was invented by a man named Jacob Davis, who saw that a big problem with working men’s pants was that the pockets tore away from the fabric. He did not have the money to patent his idea, so he sold the idea to Strauss. Thus Levis became the first jeans with rivets, a staple for working men and cowboys from 1872.

Denim supposedly comes from a type of serge cloth sewn in Nimes, France. Thus the term, ‘de Nimes became denim in English. The word jeans comes from Genoa, Italy. Genes, or jeans, were cotton clothing worn by sailors. As you don your latest stylish jeans, think of wearing the pants made from the sail of a ship. They have come a long way in style since then.

The Origin of the Jeans

Learning the Jeans’ History

Strauss and de Nimes

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