A pair of jeans – a worldwide wardrobe essential, trousers that match almost every outfit. Since the beginning of the 20th century, these denim trousers have been changing their cut, colour and length almost every decade. Yet, one thing is certain – they’ve never gone out of fashion.
Invulnerable sailor clothing
To the surprise, Americans were not the first to wear jeans. Everything began in Italy, in the 16th century. Italian sailors, who worked outdoors often in bad weather conditions, needed waterproof clothes made of a resilient fabric. When they travelled to India, they discovered a thick cotton material called dungaree. Indians dyed the dungaree cloth with the indigo plants to make it blue. The Italians decided to bring the dungaree back with them to their homeland and sew sturdy clothes that would be useful while working by the sea. Genoa, which was a very powerful city and an Italian capital of sailors, became the first location, where the new pants from the dungaree were made. Italians called them geanos or jeanos and, as they turned out to be very practical and durable, they wore them either during stormy or sunny weather. What’s also interesting is that while washing the trousers in the water, they were changing their colour and became dingy. That’s how the bleached version of jeans was created.
An introduction to denim
An alternative to dungaree and jeanos was a type of cloth that was produced in France. Its name denim came from the phrase serge de Nîmes (eng. serge from Nîmes) and from the city of Nîmes, where it was weaved for the first time. Similarly to the Indian fabric, denim was also very strong and tough, so it could be used to sew clothes for workers.
A powerful duo: Levi Strauss and Jacob William Davis
In the 1850s, denim was sold and bought very willingly by many cloth merchants. One of them was a Jew, Levi Strauss, the father of the present-day jeans. He lived and worked in Germany, but since he and his family were discriminated against because of their nationality, they emigrated to the USA. Strauss moved from New York City to San Francisco to set up his fabric business. Since the 19th century in America was an era of gold diggers, there was a huge demand for durable working clothing. One of the tailors who created clothes for these men was Jacob William Davis. He introduced the idea of sewing cupreous clinches to the trousers to make them more tear-resistant. In 1853 he started a collaboration with Levi Strauss and produced the first pair of jeans, which were primarily called waist overalls. Gold diggers loved these pants, as they were functional, comfortable and relatively cheap. Soon all the factory workers and farmers wore jeans in the USA. The Strauss and Davis company was a huge success then and, to this very day, is one of the most recognizable clothing brands worldwide.
How did the jeans go viral?
Undoubtedly, jeans owed a big promotion to Western films and other Hollywood productions, when in the 1930s people watched John Wayne and other handsome cowboys wearing these trousers on the big screen. Europeans considered a pair of jeans to be the best souvenir from a trip to the States, which was extremely popular in the 40s and 50s. Teenagers, being inspired by movie stars, James Dean and Elvis Presley, started to wear these denim pants to school regarding it as a symbol of rebellion, as it was forbidden those days.
Denim pants nowadays
For the last 70 years jeans have gone through a serious transformation, starting from flared hippie trousers, and baggy hipsters to slim-fit pants. Leading clothing manufacturers create hundreds of different cuts each year, so consumers can’t get bored with the denim. Although jeans have over 150 years of history, people still love them, and I’m sure they’ll do for the next 150 years.
Tekst: Nina Urantówka
Grafika: Nina Urantówka
