Pants, Jeans, Shorts

Jeans are trousers made from denim. Originally work clothes, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's and Wrangler. Today Jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors. more...

History

The earliest known pre-cursor for jeans is the Indian export of a thick cotton cloth, in the 16th century, known as dungaree. Dyed in indigo, it was sold in the vicinity of the Dongarii Fort near Mumbai. Sailors cut it to suit them.

Jeans were first created in Genoa, Italy when the city was an independent Republic and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose trousers for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white. The first denim came from Nîmes, France, hence de Nimes, the name of the fabric. The French word for these trousers was anchored around their word for Genoa. The French bleu de Gênes, from the Italian blu di genova, literally the "blue of Genoa" dye of their fabric, is the root of the names for these pants, "jeans" and "blue jeans", today.

Circa 1872, jeans made a formal arrival in America. Levi Strauss was a Bavarian dry goods merchant living in San Francisco. One of Levi's customers was Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co wholesale house. After one of Jacob's customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn trousers, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly. Jacobs did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Levi suggesting that they both go into business together. After Strauss accepted Davis's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received patent #139,121, a patent for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings", from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the blue jean, as we know it today, was born.

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