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Jeans are a type of trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with the addition of copper pocket rivets added by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and patented by Davis and Levi Strauss on May 20, 1873. Prior to the patent, the term "blue jeans" had been long in use for various garments (including trousers, overalls, and coats), constructed from blue-colored denim.See, e.g., The Richmond Enquirer (Richmond, VA) March 25, 1823, wherein a paid notice described the ready-made apparel stolen by a thief : FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD, FOR JEREMIAH, or as he is commonly called Jerry Hatcher, lately a convict of the Penitentiary, who on the night of February 17 last did break through my store and carry off a variety of goods, together with about $20 in change and some ready made clothing, and has made his escape. He is about 4 1/2 or 5 feet high, stout and very well made, with light hair, and I expect has on blue Jeans coatee and brown pantaloons, as he took such from me and has been seen with them on. I expect he is either in Richmond, Petersburg or Lynchburg. Any person who will apprehend said Hatcher and deliver him to me, will meet with my thanks, and the above reward. BRIGHTBERRY BROWN , Red Mills, Buckingham County,, March 14.
Originally designed for , modern jeans were popularized as casual wear by Marlon Brando and James Dean in their 1950s films, particularly The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause, leading to the fabric becoming a symbol of rebellion among teenagers, especially members of the greaser subculture. From the 1960s onwards, jeans became common among various youth subcultures and subsequently young members of the general population. Nowadays, they are one of the most popular types of trousers in Western culture. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler.
By the 17th century, jean was a crucial textile for working-class people in Northern Italy. This is seen in a series of genre paintings from around the 17th century attributed to an artist now referred to as the Master of the Blue Jeans. The ten paintings depict impoverished scenes with lower-class figures wearing a fabric that looks like denim. The fabric would have been Genoese jean, which was cheaper. Genre painting came to prominence in the late 16th century, and the non-nobility subject matter in all ten paintings places them among others that portray similar scenes.
Dungaree was mentioned for the first time in the 17th century, when it was referred to as cheap, coarse thick cotton cloth, often colored blue but sometimes white, worn by impoverished people in what was then a region of Bombay, India a dockside village called Dongri. This cloth was "dungri" in Hindi. Dungri was exported to England and used for manufacturing of cheap, robust working clothes. In English, the word "dungri" became pronounced as "dungaree".
Levi Strauss, as a young man in 1851, went from Germany to New York to join his older brothers who ran a goods store. In 1853, he moved to San Francisco to open his own dry goods business. 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 . The copper rivets were to reinforce the points of stress, such as pocket corners and at the bottom of the button fly. Strauss accepted Davis's offer,Wagman-Gellar, Marlene (2010). Eureka!: The Surprising Stories Behind the Ideas That Shaped the World, Eureka #3 (1871) (unpaginated). Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Retrieved October 2, 2011. and the two men received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" on May 20, 1873.
Davis and Strauss experimented with different fabrics. An early attempt was brown cotton duck, a bottom-weight fabric. Finding denim a more suitable material for work-pants, they began using it to manufacture their riveted pants. The denim used was produced by an American manufacturer. Popular legend incorrectly states that it was imported from Nîmes. A popular myth is that Strauss initially sold brown canvas pants to miners, later dyed them blue, turned to using denim, and only after Davis wrote to him, added rivets.
Initially, Strauss's jeans were simply sturdy trousers worn by working class, miners, farmers, and cattlemen throughout the North American West. During this period, men's jeans had the fly down the front, whereas women's jeans had the fly down the left side. When Levi Strauss & Co. patented the modern, mass-produced prototype in 1873, there were two pockets in the front and a patch pocket on the back right reinforced with copper rivets. The small riveted watch pocket was first added by Levi Strauss to their jeans in the late 1870s.
The popularity of "waist overalls", as jeans were sometimes called, expanded during World War II. 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 overall without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss called 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.Anna Schober (2001). Blue Jeans. Vom Leben in Stoffen und Bildern. Frankfurt/ New York: Campus. 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. In Japan in 1977, a professor of Osaka University Philip Karl Pehda chastised a female student wearing jeans in the classroom. Then he was protested by the students, and a controversy arose in the country.
Examples of intentional denim distressing strictly to make them more fashionable can be seen as early as 1935 in Vogue's June issue. 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, which helped to bring denim to a larger and more versatile market. Acceptance of jeans continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Originally a utilitarian garment, jeans became a common fashion choice in the second half of the 20th century.
In the early 21st century, Details Men's Style Manual devoted a chapter to jeans, saying, "Now that jeans have become more acceptable cocktail-hour attire, you should probably own more than one pair." Calling Levi's 501s "an icon from the moment they were introduced," and "the quintessential pair of jeans," the guidebook calls the standard straight leg design, "a classic clean-cut American Graffiti look."
For more information on dyeing, refer to denim and the discussion there of using pigment dyes.
The used or "Stone washing" look is created by means of abrading the jeans or treating them with chemicals, such as acryl resin, phenol, a hypochlorite, potassium permanganate, caustic soda, acids etc. Der Preis der Bluejeans documentary by Studio Hamburg 2012
Ripping or distressing of jeans, though also arising naturally as a result of wear and tear, is sometimes deliberately performed by suppliers—with distressed clothing sometimes selling for more than a nondistressed pair. For example, Emilio Pucci sold "embellished mid-rise boyfriend jeans" for £600 (US$860).
Punks used Safety pin in garments to encourage the youth to not buy endless, meaningless fashion, and thus fund corporations. Clothes manufacturers Gentrification the notion by selling clothes with safety pins already in them, so the original meaning of punk was lost. Denim became a key target of this politically fueled deconstruction, with both men and women donning torn pants and jackets, accessorized with safety pins and slogans.
The trend became popular again in the 1990s with the emergence of grunge fashion. The grunge youth wore loose-fitting ripped jeans, flannel shirts or woolen Pendletons layered over T-shirts. Their anti-conformist approach to fashion led to the popularization of the casual chic look, a trend which continued into the 2000s.
The production of jeans with a "used look" can be more environmentally damaging than regular jeans, depending on how the waste compounds are processed. Sandblasting and treating with sandpaper has the risk of causing silicosis to the workers, and in Turkey, more than 5,000 textile workers have been stricken with this disease, and 46 people are known to have died. Some companies have announced they are banning the use of sandblasting.
For those who prefer to refrain from washing their jeans there have been suggestions to freeze them in order to kill the germs that cause odor. However, this advice has been proven ineffective.
The ruling sparked widespread feminist protest. The day after the decision, women in the Italian Parliament protested by wearing jeans and holding placards that read "Jeans: An Alibi for Rape". As a sign of support, the California Senate and the California Assembly followed suit. Patricia Giggans, the executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (now Peace Over Violence) soon made Denim Day an annual event. at least 20 U.S. states officially recognize Denim Day in April. Wearing jeans on that day has become an international symbol of protest against such attitudes about sexual assault. In 2008 the Supreme Court of Cassation overturned the ruling, so there is no longer a "denim" defense to the charge of rape.
United States consumers spent more than US$14 billion on jeans in 2004 and US$15 billion in 2005. US consumers bought US$13.8 billion of men's and women's jeans in the year that ended April 30, 2011 (~$ in ), according to market-research firm NPD Group.
The jeans brand Rokotov and Fainberg is named after the defendants in the Rokotov–Faibishenko case, Yan T. Rokotov and Vladislav P. Faibishenko, who were executed for, among other things, trafficking in jeans.Rudevich, Alexei. Worth going to prison for: Getting hold of jeans in the USSR . Russia Beyond the Headlines, September 16, 2014. Accessed on November 16, 2014.
Although not outright banned, jeans were hard to come by in the Soviet Union since they were seen as a symbol of rebellion by the Soviet youth, who wanted to emulate the style of film and rock stars of the West. The Soviet government resisted supplying the market with jeans as it would mean responding to the market, a capitalist principle. People went to great lengths, sometimes by resorting to violence and other illegal activities, to obtain real Western-made jeans. That led to the creation of black markets and to the bootlegging of jeans, which since has become an important cultural element of the history of the Soviet Union.
In February 2021, it was found that sales for athleisure had risen by 84% since March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
In the early 2000s, low-rise jeans were commonly seen on celebrities such as Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera, attributing to the Y2K style. In 2021, online searches for 'y2k fashion' had risen by 193%, showing that the fashion style was making a comeback, and low-rise jeans were becoming a common clothing item for teenagers and young adults.
Low-rise jeans usually come or more below the navel. Manufactured low-rise jeans have a shorter rise (distance between the waistband and crotch seam). The low-rise look can also be accomplished by letting jeans with longer rises fall lower than they are meant to. This is a less extreme version of sagging, which was popularized by male hip-hop artists in the 1990s.
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