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, Mommy-cut,
maternity, 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
[edit]
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.
[citation
needed]
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.
[citation
needed]
During the Middle Ages, 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.
[citation
needed]
[edit]
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.
[1]
[edit]
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.
[2] 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.
[2]
[edit]
Evolution of the
garment
Copper
rivets
for reinforcing pockets are a characteristic feature of blue
jeans.
The blue denim fabric of jeans
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.
[3]
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.
[4]
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,
[5] 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.
[6] 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).
[7]
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.
[edit]
Manufacturing
processes
[edit]
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.
[8]
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.
[edit]
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]
[edit]
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.
[9]
[edit]
Other languages
- In Arabic they
are pronounced as English but in Arabic letters جينز
- In Bulgarian jeans are known as дънки
(Bulgarian transliteration of donkey, but perhaps from English "dungarees").
- In Chinese
niuzaiku (SC: 牛仔裤, TC: 牛仔褲),
literally, "cowboy pants" (trousers), indicating their association with the American West,
cowboy culture, and outdoors work.
- In Croatian
jeans are known as traperice meaning "trapper pants".
- In Czech
džíny or even more commonly as "rifle".
- In Danish
cowboybukser meaning "cowboy pants".
- In Dutch, jeans
are often known as 'spijkerbroek' meaning "nail trousers", referring to the
copper studs on riveted jeans.
- In Finnish,
jeans are usually known as "farkut", short for "farmarihousut" ("farmer's
trousers" in English.)
- In Greek jeans are
known as τζίν.
- In Hebrew as
"ג'ינס" pronounced the same as English
- In Hungarian name for jeans is "farmer" (short
for "farmernadrág", meaning "farmer's trousers").
- In Khmer/Cambodian
is pronounced "Khao"
- In Korean, jeans
are known as "cheong baji" (청바지), meaning "blue trousers".
- In Macedonian, jeans are known as "farmerki"
(фармерки), meaning "farmer's trousers".
- In Norwegian "dongeribukse" or "olabukse".
"Dongeri" is adapted from English "dungaree," and "bukse" is Norwegian for "pants". The
prefix Ola is used to describe the average Norwegian
person. According to the Norwegian Language Council, the term
"olabukse" was coined by Tor Wessel Kildal, when introducing jeans to Norwegian
consumers, targeting young males (10–12 years).[10]
- In Polish as
"dżinsy"
- In Puerto
Rican Spanish as mahones.
- In Romanian
as "blugi".
- In Russian as
"джинсы"
- In Serbian
jeans are known as "фармерке" or "farmerke" (Serbian transliteration of
farmer's trousers).
- In Spanish they are mostly known as jeans, but
are also called vaqueros ("cowboys") or tejanos ("Texans").
- In Slovak as
džínsy or even more commonly as "rifle"
- In Slovenian jeans are known as "kavbojke", a
word derived from the word "cowboy".
- In Tagalog
as "ma-ong"
- In Thai as "ยีนส์"
pronounced "Yean"
- In Turkish as
"Kot" where "Kot" is the surname of Muhteşem
Kot and his denim brand who introduced denim into Turkey.
- In Ukrainian as "джинси"
- In Urdu as جینز, the same as in English
- In Welsh as "jîns"
pronounced the same as English
-
