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Blue jeans have become fashionable items of seduction. To others they are just durable “uniforms” to be worn regularly. We wear them loose, tight, hanging, torn, new or old.
Billions of dollars are spent on them every year around the world and they now come in variations and styles to fit women with exotic curves and different shapes.
Some of the most famous and memorable songs and adverts have been created in celeberation of blue jeans.
Ever wondered who first introduced them to the world?
According the Smithsonian:
- A close-up of the Smithsonian’s original Levi Strauss trousers. Photo courtesy American History Museum
“It all started in 1871, when tailor Jacob Davis of Reno, Nevada, had a problem. The pants he was making for miners weren’t tough enough to stand up to the conditions in local mines; among other issues, the pockets and button fly were constantly being torn. “A miner’s wife came up to Davis and asked him to come up with pants that could withstand some abuse,” says curator Nancy Davis (no relation), from the American History Museum. Davis looked at the metal fasteners he used on harnesses and other objects. “At that time, he came up with the riveted trousers.”
As local miners snapped up the overalls he made with rivet-strengthened stress points and durable “duck cloth,” a type of canvas, Davis realized he needed to protect his idea. “He had to rush, due to the fact that these worked really well,” says Nancy Davis. “He realized he had something.” Lacking the money to file documents, he turned to Levi Strauss, a German immigrant who had recently opened a branch of his family’s dry-goods store in San Francisco, and the two took out a patent on a pair of pants strengthened with rivets.”
Jacob Davis died in 1908 and Levi Strauss died on September 26, 1902 (109 years ago today) at the age of 73.
