In the middle of the twenties century half of the world rushed to the California, USA in search of gold. In 1853 Levi Strass, native of Bavaria, also left his home for America.
But goldfields weren’t interesting for him. He started his own business focusing on making strong pants for gold diggers.
His factory produced overalls from brown canvas that was delivered from an Italian town Genoa. Bales had marks Genes on them, and Americans read it in the same way as ‘jeans’, so later the word was changed and pants were mostly called as ‘jeans’.
Soon the pants became blue. This happened due to the fact the factory ran out of canvas. The production couldn’t be stopped and Levi decided to use thick blue twill delivered from Nim town in France.
Mark ‘De Nimes’ (‘From Nim’) gave name to the fabric itself and pants made of it began to be called – denim.
Though the material was very durable sometimes it couldn’t carry heavy mining tools and gold bars. Levi solved this problem soon as well. He started using metallic rivets to prevent pants from tearing.
And in 1873 first Levi’s jeans with rivets appeared.
A bit later women took this clothing item into their wardrobe too.
In 1953 the first woman’s design was created.
Thus in the 50s jeans became the most fashionable garment and the whole world got to love them!
Sex-symbols of the epoch – Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando – liked wearing jeans a lot.
Moreover, first jeans were perceived as sexy clothes.
In 1952 women’s jeans got a zipper, this was a bold violation of conservative morality. Model 505 with a zipper supplanted the classic 501 model with buttons. Buttons became popular again only at the beginning of the 20th century.
In the 50s classic five-pocket denim design was highly popular: two pockets were in front, two at the back and a small one in the first front pocket.
In the 60-70s jeans became fashionable in hippie movement as a symbol of freedom, dissent and sexuality.
Then followed flared jeans, they literally burst into fashion. They looked shabby, had décor and were worn very low on hips.
In the early 70s women were hysterical about the so-called ‘hot pants’ – the shortest denim shorts ever.
They could hardly cover women’s bottom. In the 90s this style returned with a new twist and all women were again enthused.
‘Jenny’ design which is baggy and pretty comfortable for work was liked by many girls in the 60s, and in the 70s this style became popular with men too.
In the 80s jeans makers bleached jeans with pumice stone wetted in perchloric acid – young people loved the idea!
Moreover, fashionistas of that time used to tear jeans to tatters. Rich people wore special jeans embellished with gemstones.
In the 90s jeans with a high waist and skinny jeans became trendy. At the end of the last century stylish jeans were ornamented with beads, sequins, stones and prints.
Nowadays designers make jeans of different colors, experiment with forms, cuts and tailoring.
Punk style, bleached, ripped, flared or skinny jeans – diversity of styles are in vogue at the moment and you can hardly choose something that is out of fashion!
Denim is liked by lots of celebrities. For example, Jessica Alba, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Audrina Patridge, Ashley Tisdale and others. If they like jeans why don’t we do that?
