Jeans

Jeans

Jeans are pants, or trousers, made from denim. Mainly designed for work, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's and Wrangler. Today, jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors, with the "blue jeans" particularly identified with the American culture, especially the American Old West. Americans spent more than $14 billion on jeans in 2004.[1]
Contents
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* 1 History
o 1.1 Riveted jeans
* 2 Jeans in popular culture
o 2.1 Blue jeans
* 3 Blue jean insulation
* 4 Fits
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

[edit] History

Jeans fabric was made in Chieri, a town near Turin (Italy), in the 1600s. It was sold through the harbour of Genoa, which was the capital of an independent republic, and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose pants for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white. According to many people the jeans name comes from bleu de Gênes, i.e., blue of Genoa[citation needed]. The raw material originally came from the city of Nîmes (France) Serge de Nîmes i.e. denim.

[edit] Riveted jeans

A German-Jewish dry goods merchant Levi Strauss was selling blue jeans under the "Levi's" name to the mining communities of California in the 1850s. 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's customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the top of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a...

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