THE HISTORY OF BLUE JEANS

In 1847, Levi Strauss moved to America, a land of mining and the gold rush. Levi made pants (waist overalls) of sailcloth for miners, but he ran out of the material and had to find an alternative. Levi Strauss decided to use rugged cotton (with a twill) known as 'Serge de Nîmes'. The name of the twill from Nîmes was corrupted to 'de Nîmes’, before becoming the now famous ‘denim’.

The pockets turned out to be too weak for the miners’ rough work, so Levi began looking for a solution. He found the answer in a letter from tailor Jacob Davis, who suggested to Strauss in 1872 that he should use rivets to reinforce the pockets. Strauss and Davis jointly applied for the patent on the first denim, and the first jeans brand was born: Levi Strauss & Co.

BLUE JEANS

Jeans are also called blue jeans, but this name is also a corruption. The warp thread of the denim was dyed with the dye 'bleu de Gênes' and quickly became known as 'blue jeans'. The color of jeans is so characteristic, that they are still often referred to as blue jeans. Denim is also so closely connected with jeans that they are also sometimes referred to as denims. In Dutch, they are called ‘spijkerbroek’, where ‘spijker’ means nail and refers to the rivets.

HOW THE CLASSIC MODEL AROSE

The classic model of the first denims changed in World War II; the waist overall made way for the forerunner of the current generation of jeans. Blue jeans also became popular in the American navy; sailors wore these work pants in their spare time, and turned jeans into a fashion item. The presence of American soldiers in Europe in the war then introduced jeans to Europe.