Jeans

Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler. Jeans come in various fits, including skinny, tapered, straight, boot cut and flare.

Jeans are now a very popular form of casual dress around the world, and have been so for decades. They come in many styles and colors; however, "blue jeans" are particularly identified with American culture, especially the American Old West.

History

Etymology

Jeans, a.k.a. denim, was a fabric that originated in the Italian town of Genoa, and was used for sails because it was very sturdy. Because of its durability and resistance to wear, jeans started to be used to make clothing for peasants. The word "jeans" comes from the Italian word "genuense", literally "of Genoa" and from "jean": the local word used to denote corduroy. The oldest jeans in the world are the ones worn by Giuseppe Garibaldi in May 1860, they are preserved in the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento.^[1]

The story of jeans begins in the city of Genoa, in Italy, famous for its cotton corduroy, called either jean or jeane; the jeans fabric from Genoa (at that time) was in fact very similar to corduroy. During the Republic of Genoa, the jeans were exported by sailors of Genoa throughout Europe. In the French city of Nimes, weavers tried to reproduce the fabric exactly, but without success. However, with experimentation, and through trial and error, they developed another twill fabric that became known as denim, literally "de Nimes". Only at the end of the eighteenth century did jeans arrive in the United States.^[2]

Riveted jeans

Dry goods merchant Levi Strauss was selling blue jeans under the "Levi's" brand to the mining communities of California in the 1850s.^{[citation needed]} One of Strauss's customers was Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale house. After one of Davis' customers kept buying cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of stress, such as on the pocket corners and at the top of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they both go into business together. After Strauss accepted Davis's offer, the two men received U.S. patent 139,121, for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings," on May 20, 1873.^[3]

Cost of jeans

In 1885, jeans could be bought in the US for $1.50 (approximately $36 in 2010). Today, a pair of durable jeans can be purchased in the United States for about 40 dollars.^[4] On the other hand, many brands of jeans are currently available for much less. In the United States, there is a robust market for used jeans, and the prices obtained for these pre-owned jeans vary tremendously. As the price of cotton rises, the cost of blue jeans is expected to rise as well.

Americans spent more than $14 billion on jeans in 2004 and $15 billion in 2005.^[4]

Evolution of the garment

Initially, jeans were simply sturdy trousers worn by workers, especially in the factories during World War II. During this period, men's jeans had the zipper down the front, whereas women's jeans had the zipper down the right side. By the 1960s, both men's and women's jeans had the zipper down the front. Historic photographs indicate that in the decades before they became a staple of fashion, jeans generally fit quite loosely, much like a pair of bib overalls without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss denominated its flagship product "waist overalls" rather than "jeans".

After James Dean popularized them in the movie Rebel Without a Cause, wearing jeans became a symbol of youth rebellion during the 1950s. Because of this, they were sometimes banned in theaters, restaurants and schools.^[5] During the 1960s the wearing of jeans became more acceptable, and by the 1970s it had become general fashion in the United States for casual wear.^[6]

Michael Belluomo, editor of Sportswear International Magazine, Oct/Nov 1987, P. 45, wrote that in 1965, Limbo, a boutique in the New York East Village, was "the first retailer to wash a new pair of jeans to get a used, worn effect, and the idea became a hit." He continued, "[Limbo] hired East Village artists to embellish the jeans with patches, decals and other touches, and sold them for $200." In the early 1980s the denim industry introduced the Stone-Washing technique developed by GWG also known as "Great Western Garment Co.". Donald Freeland of Edmonton, Alberta pioneered the method,^[7] which helped to bring denim to a larger and more versatile market. Acceptance of jeans continued through the 1980s and 1990s to the point where jeans are now a wardrobe staple, with the average North American owning seven pairs.^[8] Currently, jeans may be seen worn by people of all genders and ages.

A typical pair of blue jeans consumes 919 gallons of water during its life cycle (this includes the water to irrigate the cotton crop, manufacture the jeans, and the numerous washes by the consumer).^[9] Because cotton is the world's biggest nonfood crop, and water shortages are a growing global trend, some jean companies are looking into ways to reduce the amount of water needed in their production of jeans-from field to factory.

Manufacturing processes

Dyeing

Traditionally, jeans are dyed to a blue color using an indigo dye. Some other colors that can be achieved are pink, yellow, black, and white. These colors are achieved by coloring other fabrics to resemble jeans. Approximately 20 million tons of indigo are produced annually for this purpose, though only a few grams of the dye are required for each pair of these trousers.^[10]

Chemical structure of indigo dye, the blue of blue jeans.

For more information on dyeing, refer to denim and the discussion there of using pigment dyes.

Pre-shrinking of jeans

In the 1970s Hal Burgess first marketed "pre-washed" jeans. He was a salesman for his father, who owned a large jeans manufacturing company in Cartersville, Georgia. While on a sales trip, there was a flood in the hotel room where Burgess was storing jeans. He asked the hotel owner if he could rent out the pool to wash the flooded jeans. The jeans shrank but Hal decided to market them as 'pre-washed' jeans and sold them two sizes smaller than they were initially labeled. This was the first time 'pre-shrunk' jeans were marketed.^{[citation needed]}

On a national scale, Levi Strauss & CO. was the first to market pre-washed jeans on a nationwide basis, beginning in Oklahoma City & the C.R. Anthony CO. The CR Anthony Department stores were among the largest retailers of Levi Strauss. In 1980, young assistant manager at a store in Oklahoma City noticed a large number of men and, especially young women, asking to try on the returned jeans that had been returned for shrinkage problems. The assistant manager of the men's department, George Crosby, asked his manager and the upper management to place a double order for Levi 501 jeans for a marketing experiment. Getting the approval needed, Mr. Crosby & his fiance took the 100 or so unwashed 501 jeans to a local help-your-self "washateria" to shrink the jeans, re size & re label the jeans, and place an ad for a special offering of pre-washed 501's. The response was overwhelming. Within months pre-washed 501's directly from Levi Strauss were available regionally, then nationwide.^{[citation needed]}

Used look created by sandblasting

Many consumers in Western societies are willing to pay extra for jeans that have the appearance of being used. To give the fabrics the worn look, sandblasting is used. Sandblasting has the risk of causing silicosis to the workers, and in Turkey, more than 5,000 workers in the textile industry have been stricken with this disease, and 46 people are known to have died.^[11]

Gallery

Denim overalls of the type worn by farmers, miners and construction workers
Greaser or Rocker wearing Levis, c.1960
Hippie girl wearing bell bottoms, 1970s
President Reagan wearing a "Texas tuxedo:" Stonewashed Levi's jeans, matching jacket and Stetson
Woman wearing Daisy Dukes, made by cutting the legs off a pair of jeans
Acid wash jeans popular in the 1980s
Baggy gangster jeans worn by 1990s hip hop fans

Baggy gangster jeans worn by 1990s hip hop fans
Distressed lowrise jeans popular in the early 2000s
Nudie jeans, 2006
Scene kids wearing skinny jeans, 2008