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The Gold Rush was in its peak when Levi Strauss bought denim to America in 1853.

Men were traveling West in seek of fortune and required garments that could withstand the inhospitable conditions. Jeans became suitable for miners and cowboys as they would not be destroyed in a short period of time.

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Jeans have had a prominent effect on world culture for the past 140 years. Developing from working clothes, a symbol of disobedience and now everyday fashion.

Originally designed for cowboys and miners, jeans went on to become popular amongst 1950's in greaser culture. In the 1960's jeans became a common fashion item amongst hippie subculture and continued to be popular in the 70's and 80's with

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A typical pair of blue jeans uses around 3500 liters of water during its life cycle. This includes the water to irrigate the cotton crop, manufacture the jeans, and the numerous washes by the consumer.

The production of jeans with a "used look" can be more environmentally damaging than regular jeans, depending on how the waste compounds are processed. Sandblasting and treating with sandpaper has the risk of causing silicosis to the workers, and in Turkey, more than 5,000 textile workers have been stricken with this disease, and 46 people are known to have died. Some companies have announced they are banning the use of sandblasting.

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Traditionally, jeans were dyed to a  blue color using natural indigo dye. Most denim is now dyed using synthetic indigo. Approximately 20 thousand tons of indigo are produced annually for this purpose, though only a few grams of the dye are required for each pair. For other colors of denim other dyes must be used. Currently, jeans are produced in any color that can be achieved with cotton.

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Jeans are pants made from denim or dungaree cloth. They were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873 and a worn still but in a different context. Jeans are named after the city of Genoa in Italy, a place where cotton corduroy, called either jean or jeane, was manufactured. Levi Strauss came from Germany to New York in 1851 to join his older brother who had a dry goods store.

In 1853 he heard about Gold Rush in the West so moved to San Francisco to establish Western Branch of the family dry goods business. There he sold, among other things, cotton cloth. One of his customers was Jacob W. Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada. Davis made functional items such as tents, horse blankets, and wagon covers.

One day, his customer ordered a pair of sturdy pants that could withstand hard work. He made them from denim that he bought from Levi Strauss & Co and made them stronger by placing copper rivets at the places pants rip the most: pockets and flies. When he wanted to patent them, he wrote to Levi Strauss, and they became partners. They opened a bigger factory, and that is how jeans were born.

Jeans History

Jeans marked culture of the last 140 years probably more than we think. They were first working clothes, then symbols of disobedience only to become fashion items. History of denim and jeans is long and colorful.

Jeans Inventors

Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss teamed up from necessity and created an item that will influence cultural groups for years and even today - they created jeans. Here you can learn more about jeans inventors.

Jeans Facts

Did you know that the most expensive pair of blue jeans is sold for $250,000? Did you know that the longest pair of blue jeans is sixty-eight meters long? Read more interesting facts about jeans.

Making Jeans

Did you ever asked yourself how blue jeans are made? Or even zippers? Now you have a chance to find out. Read about methods of manufacturing of jeans and zippers.

History of Jeans Making

Jeans are made of a material called denim. The name “denim” comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called “Serge de Nîmes”, initially made in Nîmes, France, hence “de Nîmes” - “denim”. Weavers of Nîmes tried to reproduce the cotton corduroy that was famously made in the city of Genoa, in Italy, but with no luck. With trial and error, they developed another twill fabric that became known as denim. That was cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. Warp threads were dyed in indigo while weft threads remained white that gave to denim blue color on the one side and white on the other. Denim is highly durable, and that is why he was used by people that needed clothes that would last long. That is also why it was used by Levi Strauss and Jacob W. Davis for material for jeans pants.

Indigo dye is a color used for coloring the denim. It is an organic dye with a distinctive blue color. It was manufactured and used in India, from where it got its name, since the ancient times. From India, Indigo is imported to Egypt, Greece and Rome. Other ancient civilizations, such are China, Japan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Britain, Mesoamerica, Peru, Iran, and Africa also used indigo for dyeing. Indigo in India was made from plant Indigofera tinctoria. It was used on cotton because it was the easiest method of coloring. The only problem was: color didn’t last long. Indigo was a rare luxury in Europe in the Middle Ages because of high duties imposed by Persian, Levantine, and Greek middlemen. With discovering of a sea route to India that problem was solved and indigo plants are moving to colonies. Organic Indigo is used until the discovery of the synthetic indigo in the late 19th century. It becomes cheaper variant and replaces it.

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History of Jeans - Origin of Denim Jeans

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Jeans are pants made from denim or dungaree cloth. They were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873 and a worn still but in a different context. Jeans are named after the city of Genoa in Italy, a place where cotton corduroy, called either jean or jeane, was manufactured. Levi Strauss came…

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Invented in 1873 by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis

Fabric
Made from denim or dungaree cloth

Name
Named after a city in Genoa, Italy. A place where cotton curduroy called either jean or jeane was manufactured.

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Great start

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If you ask someone why they wear blue jeans and they reply "because they're comfortable," they are lying to you in a way that is so total and complete I suspect they are also lying to themselves. Denim is a tough, rugged material meant to withstand time and the elements. Literally any other fabric would feel better against your skin.

Generally, when people say that something they wear is "comfortable," they mean it is psychologically comfortable, not physically comfortable. We wear blue jeans because everyone else wears blue jeans, and it's our nature to want to be part of a group.

Blue jeans were actually an accidental discovery in the 18th century, when people in Nimes, France attempted to replicate a sturdy Italian fabric called serge. What they created was "serge de Nimes" or, as it's been shortened to, "denim."

However, as far as modern-day people are concerned, the history of blue jeans really began when a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss brought denim to America in 1853. He was based in San Francisco at the time, when the Gold Rush was at its peak. Men were going west in search of fortune and would spend months camping out in often inhospitable climates; pants made out of traditional fabric would be destroyed within a matter of weeks.
Jeans actually have a very egalitarian legacy!
Blue jeans, though, were perfect for cowboys and miners alike. Funnily enough, blue jeans also became popular with polo players. Their pants could easily be ruined if they rode through brambles on a horse, and I suppose it's not very aristocratic to ride around in front of a group of spectators with a great gaping hole in your pants.

Even today, polo players typically wear regular blue jeans to practice, and white jeans for matches. Jeans actually have a very egalitarian legacy! (And to be fair, in much of the world, polo is a sport played not just by wealthy elites but by ranchers.)

You may have ascertained by now that a totally valid response to "Why do you wear blue jeans?" is "They are sturdy and durable and therefore last a long time." That's a good answer. Or it should be! But it's not necessarily as true as it was in the past. Blue jeans are demanded by so many people now that most manufacturers have ditched traditional looms for modern equipment that produces thinner, poorer quality denim just to meet the demand.
How did we get a world where you can't go outside without seeing someone wearing jeans?
The best denim today is believed to be made in Japan, where there is slightly less demand for them, due in part to a much smaller population (globally, 39% of blue jeans are bought by North Americans, while people in Japan and Korea buy around 10%). So how did we get a world where you can't go outside without seeing someone wearing jeans? As is the case with so many trends, you can blame movie stars.

James Dean popularized blue jeans in the movie Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. He wore a T-shirt, a leather jacket, and jeans, a uniform men began copying immediately. Since people didn't have access to the internet or even television in many cases, movies and the actors in them held sway over the public imagination even more than they do now. Moreover, Rebel Without a Cause was a film where the clothing stood out. While it was originally supposed to be a black and white picture, the studio decided to make the film in color; Dean's Lee 101 Riders were dip-dyed to make the blue especially eye-catching.

Dean also represented a newer, younger, edgier breed of star. The leather jacket and the blue jeans that Dean wore in the film symbolized that he wanted nothing to do with suburbia. He had no desire for a 9 to 5 job like the one his father held. Instead, he craved adventure and meaning in the manner of, say, a cowboy. And how could you convey that he didn't want to be penned in by society? By having him wear cowboy pants, of course.
It's not surprising that a whole class of young men immediately began replicating the look.
That's a sentiment that more than a few teenagers can relate to. Indeed, the film is often connected to the rise of the very notion of teenage culture in America. Pair that with the fact that Marlon Brando also wore jeans in The Wild One (1953) and that Elvis (who grew up on a farm) wore them all the time,and it's not surprising that a whole class of young men immediately began replicating the look.

This explains why misunderstood young men who did not want to become their fathers started wearing blue jeans, but what about misunderstood young women? You can credit Marilyn Monroe for that. She wore them in arguably her best movie, The Misfits, where she played a woman who went off with a group of...cowboys. Her outfit was essentially the female version of James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause outfit.

And, cool fact: Most people gravitate, throughout their lives, to the styles that were popular when they were teenagers. That doesn't mean that if you dressed as a goth as a teenager you'll keep doing that forever, but it does mean that a wide group of baby boomers see blue jeans and instinctively think, "That is what cool people wear." Accordingly, they have kept wearing them pretty much forever, so much so that they have very much become the norm.

Which brings us to the point that you wear blue jeans because your dad thinks they're cool, an obviously hilarious counterpoint to their misunderstood-youth origins. When Bradley Cooper makes a movie implying that tough, outsider-y men all wear tinfoil pants, or pants made out of the tender fleece of a lamb, then maybe things will change again.

Jennifer Wright is the author of It Ended Badly: The 13 Worst Break-Ups in History, due out fall 2015. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

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The Complete History of Blue Jeans, From Miners to Marilyn Monroe

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If you ask someone why they wear blue jeans and they reply "because they're comfortable," they are lying to you in a way that is so total and complete I suspect they are also lying to themselves. Denim is a tough, rugged material meant to withstand time and the elements.