Jeans took their name from the word geane or jene or jean, which was used for a snappy twilled cotton cloth worn by 18th century sailors in the Italian city of Genoa.
The earliest known reference to jeans, meaning close-fitting trousers, in English was in 1842.
In 1853 Levi Strauss decided to open a West Coast branch of the family dry goods business in San Francisco, which was the commercial hub of the California Gold Rush.
Strauss turned up at the California Gold Rush with a roll of tent canvas under his arm in order, which he uses to make sturdy, sold trousers for the prospectors. When he ran out of canvas, his brothers in New York imported the material from it's French source.
Within three years Strauss switched to a tough cotton fabric known as denim and started dying his pants indigo blue.
Jacob Davis was a tailor who often bought bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale house. In 1872, Davis wrote to Strauss asking to partner with him to patent and sell clothing reinforced with small metal rivets as well as the usual stitching.
Levi accepted Davis's offer, and the two men received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" on May 20, 1873.
Levi Strauss blue jeans with copper rivets were priced at $13.50 per dozen in 1874.
Originally, jeans were cuffed because workers would purchase jeans larger than they fit to deal with shrinkage. The cuffs also proved useful for cowboys as they placed tobacco, cigarettes and coins in them.
The oldest surviving pair of Levi jeans, made in 1879, is kept in a fire-proof safe at Strauss's US HQ and is thought to be worth $153,000.
Levi's doesn't know the significance of most of their historical trademarks, including their three-digit model numbers (e.g. 501) or the arc design stitched on their back pockets. This is because all of their records were lost with their headquarters in the 1906 San Francisco fire.
The earliest known reference to jeans, meaning close-fitting trousers, in English was in 1842.
In 1853 Levi Strauss decided to open a West Coast branch of the family dry goods business in San Francisco, which was the commercial hub of the California Gold Rush.
Strauss turned up at the California Gold Rush with a roll of tent canvas under his arm in order, which he uses to make sturdy, sold trousers for the prospectors. When he ran out of canvas, his brothers in New York imported the material from it's French source.
Within three years Strauss switched to a tough cotton fabric known as denim and started dying his pants indigo blue.
Levi accepted Davis's offer, and the two men received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" on May 20, 1873.
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| A pair of Levi's 501 raw jeans |
Levi Strauss blue jeans with copper rivets were priced at $13.50 per dozen in 1874.
Originally, jeans were cuffed because workers would purchase jeans larger than they fit to deal with shrinkage. The cuffs also proved useful for cowboys as they placed tobacco, cigarettes and coins in them.
The oldest surviving pair of Levi jeans, made in 1879, is kept in a fire-proof safe at Strauss's US HQ and is thought to be worth $153,000.
Levi's doesn't know the significance of most of their historical trademarks, including their three-digit model numbers (e.g. 501) or the arc design stitched on their back pockets. This is because all of their records were lost with their headquarters in the 1906 San Francisco fire.
Levi Strauss & Co. began selling bell-bottom jeans on March 11, 1969. The bell-bottom style of jeans had become popular in the late 1960s as part of the hippie counterculture movement, and Levi Strauss & Co. recognized the trend and began producing bell-bottom jeans to meet the demand.
Bell-bottom jeans are characterized by their wide, flared legs that become wider below the knee. The style was originally popularized among sailors, who wore them as part of their uniform because they were easy to roll up when they needed to get their feet wet. However, the style became associated with the counterculture movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as young people embraced the free-spirited and anti-establishment values of the time. Levi Strauss & Co.'s introduction of bell-bottom jeans was a significant moment in fashion history, as it helped to popularize the style and make it more mainstream.
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| Bell-bottom jeans |
When first dyed, jeans are yellow due to the yellow color of water soluble leucoindigo, which then oxidizes to the blue color of indigo.
It takes around 7,500 liters or 2,000 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans. That includes the amount of water required for growing cotton and manufacturing.
The small pocket inside your actual jeans pocket originally was designed to protect cowboys' pocket watches in the 1800s.
Source Daily Express
The small pocket inside your actual jeans pocket originally was designed to protect cowboys' pocket watches in the 1800s.
Source Daily Express
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