THE HISTORY OF JEANS

Take a moment to think, of your entire wardrobe, what is the garment that you wear the most? Let me guess, a jeans. Surely like me, it happens to you that you have several models and it is the most versatile garment in your closet. Well, jeans are the most successful garment of recent decades, the only one that has withstood 6 generations without undergoing almost changes and without losing its essence. No one has resisted them and the public continues to succumb to their charm today.

But what is its origin? Americans, French and Italians dispute the merit and let's say that, although they come as a design from America, their origin of manufacture is in the Mediterranean.

Back in 1853, in the middle of the gold rush and with the construction of the railroad in North America, there was a great need for sturdy clothing. The German Levi Strauss set up a tent business in San Francisco designed to satisfy the miners. After realizing that the miners preferred to sleep in the open and that what they really needed were sturdy pants, he decided to use the canvas fabric from the tents to make work overalls. For this reason, these garments were initially brown. Later, in 1873, one of Levi Strauss's clients, a tailor who bought him rolls of cloth to mend torn pants, named Jacob Davis, thought of reinforcing them with copper rivets at some points of special stress, such as the ends of the pockets or bottom of the fly. Since Jacobs had no money to patent the idea, he proposed to Levi to do business together and on May 20, 1873 they received patent # 139,121 from the US Patent and Trademark Office and jean as we know it was born.

It was later when jeans began to be manufactured in their characteristic blue color that we know today. This color has its origin in the Italian city of Genoa or Genes. The fishermen of this city dyed the fabrics with a pigment called indigo that came from India. However, Levis Strauss jeans were actually made in the French city of Nimes and it was called ‘Sarge de Nimes’ which led to Denim. This fabric (Denim) and also the pants, arrived in England from France, where the city of "Genoa" in French translates to "Gênes". This fact ended up modifying the name of the tissue over time from "gene" to "jene". Later "jene" eventually became "jean". The truth is that in one way or another, the origin of the fabric is in the Mediterranean but the merit in the creation of jeans as a garment went to Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis in America.

But when the Strauss and Davis patent ended in 1890, other manufacturers were free to reproduce the model. OshKosh B'Gosh entered the market in 1895, Blue Bell (later Wrangler) in 1904, and Lee Mercantile in 1911. During World War I, Lee Union-All jeans were the standard for all. war workers.

Currently the term jeans is used for the garment and denim is used both for the garment and for the indigo fabric with which it is manufactured.

Hollywood helped romanticize blue jeans in the 1920s and 1930s by wearing these pants to handsome cowboys played by figures like John Wayne and Gary Cooper. This new image of glamor, encouraged consumers to look for casual clothes to wear on weekends and during their vacations. Advertising images of actresses such as Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard appeared wearing jeans helped convince women that these clothes were for them too. In the 1930s, Vogue gave them its stamp of approval, calling jeans "Western chic."

The success of this garment came in the 60s thanks to the film industry. Icons such as James Dean or Marlon Brando, symbols of youthful rebellion, associated the image of jeans with their lifestyle.

In the 70s, jeans had become an iconic and universal garment that did not distinguish between sex, class or race. Meanwhile, feminists and women's liberation organizers chose blue jeans as a way to demonstrate gender equality. In 1976, Calvin Klein introduced blue jean / blue jeans on the runway - the first designer to do so.

And in the 80s, high fashion also began to be interested in this garment. Brooke Shields' provocative Calvin Klein campaign and Claudia Schiffer's sexy Guess ads helped give blue jeans a new kind of seductive potential.

By the 1990s, fashion houses such as Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, and Dior had also entered the jeans market. Over the decades, the types and models of jeans stratified between groups and subgroups: hip-hop models in the early 1990s were characterized by being oversized, low-waisted, and baggy; intellectuals and hipsters turned to black denim as a way to go back to the origins of the model; pop stars favored washed models. Throughout its recent history, jeans have always been linked to all youth movements and activities such as cinema, music, dance, urban tribes.

Today, this garment so common in our wardrobes, not only reaches catwalks and stores, but its use has become so widespread that we can find it in an endless number of models: wide, skinny, culottes, mom fit, high waist, low , light, dark or colored. And for you, what is your favorite model?

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