Jeans are generally made from a mixture of materials but first jeans fabric was created in1400s in Chieri, a town near Turin, Italy then was for sale through the harbor in Genoa. It was first made for the Genoese Navy as its sailors yearn for pants that could be worn wet or dry and of which legs could be rolled up while mopping the deck. These jeans could be washed by taking them into the nets in the sea and the sea water itself will bleach the jeans.
The word jeans was derived from a kind of material made in Europe. The material called ‘jean’ came from the sailors in Genoa as the jeans were made from it. The raw material called ‘denim’ came from the name of a material from France, serge de Nimes: serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France).
In the eighteenth century as trade, most jeans clothes were made from cotton due to an augmentation from cotton plantations and slave labor. The demand of jeans became higher as workers need some kind of clothes made from very strong material which is not easily torn. Jeans were usually dyed from plants in the Americas and India with indigo which made jeans clothes a dark blue color.
In 1848, there was a gold discover in California and led to a popularity of Gold Rush. The gold miners required some clothes which were strong for their job. In 1853, a German Leob Strauss, who later changed his name to Levi, moved to San Francisco and began his whole sale business of supplying jeans under the name of ‘Levi’.
One of Levi’s customers was Jacob Davis who had idea to reinforce torn jeans especially at the pocket part by using metal rivet to hold the jeans and the pockets together. He was willing to patent his idea but he couldn’t afford it so in 1872, he asked Levi for a deal of making the business together and if Levi could purchase him a patent. Levi approved the idea and in 1873, the men got a patent for an “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings,” from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Levi continued the jeans business in 1866 by sewing a leather label of the jeans. The label showed a picture of a pair of jeans that was being pulled between two horses. This was used to advertise and convince people how strong Levi jeans were, even couldn’t be destroyed by two horses.
Jeans also became very popular thanks to the Hollywood that made numerous western movies and many characters in the films usually wore jeans. Jeans are never out of style and especially the “blue jeans” that identify the American culture.