Jeans have been the most popular item of clothing in both men's and women's wardrobes for several decades in a row. An invention of 19th-century Americans—pants made of thick denim—has conquered the world so much that even when visiting monarchs, some movie and show business stars wear worn-out blue denim trousers. Journalists from the MIR TV channel recalled the most interesting facts about the history of denim and why ordinary work pants caused one of the most significant revolutions in the fashion world.
From mines to social events
The last place on Earth where you still cannot meet a person in jeans is a reception with the Queen of England. Despite her advanced age, Elizabeth II sacredly respects traditions, and therefore she is rightfully considered the most elegant woman in all of Foggy Albion. The monarch is famous for the fact that in her entire life she has never worn not only jeans, but even classic trousers.
At receptions with the Queen of England, there is a strict dress code: ladies come in dresses, men in tuxedos. This rule was violated only once in the entire history of the reign of Elizabeth II, when Hollywood actress Julia Roberts, arm in arm with the legendary musician Mick Jagger, came to a reception in high-waisted blue jeans and a regular T-shirt.
It has long been believed that jeans were invented by dashing Texas cowboys who needed durable pants for long periods in the saddle, but this is not entirely true. 2021 marks the 145th anniversary of the first patent for jeans. It was received by Leiba Strauss - the future Levi Strauss - a Jewish emigrant from Belgium on May 20, 1873.
The patent was issued for the production of "strapless work overalls with pockets for a knife, money and coins." Initially, jeans were made as work pants for gold miners, because at that time the Gold Rush was raging in California, and workers needed durable pants that could withstand long wear.
According to designer Vladimir Bukhinnik,
Strauss sold his first pair of jeans for one dollar and 26 cents. Feeling the success of his deal, he began to travel to the villages where the families of gold miners lived, and became interested in what particular details of clothing were important to them at work. This is how patch pockets, double stitching, and dense fabric were invented that were easily washed off dried dirt and withstood the test of humidity.
Gradually, the demand for simple trousers in these villages began to fall: ordinary fabric was torn in the pocket area due to the fact that workers had to put a lot of strain on them. But for denim pants, all these problems were nothing.
Where did the name “jeans” come from? It is known that at the end of the 16th century, sailors in the Italian city of Genoa wore canvas pants. The French who invented this fabric began to call it in the American manner “Genes”, or “Genes”, which meant “Genoa”.
The fabric for them was produced in large quantities at a factory in the French city of Nimes - Twill de Nimes. This is how the fabric received its modern name “denim”, which has remained synonymous with the word “jeans” to this day. True, denim pants became true jeans only when the American master Jacob Jevis suggested that Ostrich put rivets on the pockets for increased strength. Initially, these rivets were intended for horse harnesses.
#1
Jeans were invented by a Bavarian merchant of Jewish origin named Leiba Strauss (or Levi Strauss, as the Americans called him), who arrived in California in 1853. The tailor’s first customer was a tipsy gold miner, who demanded to sew him “strong trousers in which it would be comfortable not only to work, but also to sleep right on the ground.” Levi Strauss completed the order, charging only $1.20 for it. These were the world's first jeans.
Jeans against politics
In the USSR, the first jeans appeared only in the mid-50s of the last century and immediately became the subject of a big political game. The fact is that after the death of Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov became the leader of the country. Under him, industry and the national economy made a rapid turn towards people. Malenkov planned to devote all his efforts to the development of the light and food industries, but the conspiracy of party officials dissatisfied with this policy was successful, and in 1955 Malenkov was removed from the post of leader of the state.
Nikita Khrushchev, who replaced him, sharply changed development priorities towards heavy industry and production. Who knows, if Malenkov had remained in power, jeans could have come to the Soviet Union earlier, but everything happened differently.
“It was connected with big politics, even despite the fact that these were just clothes,” notes writer Alexander Myasnikov.
According to him, Malenkov was accused of wanting to give way not to the construction of heavy machine tools, but to simple clothing, which the Soviet people really lacked. Jeans, chewing gum, and toys became weapons of the great political game in the Cold War. The people who did not have these simple benefits felt more disadvantaged.
A real denim boom occurred in the USSR in 1957 during the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. Foreign guests brought bright colors to the dull Moscow fashion. Jeans became the item of clothing for fashionistas and fashionistas in large Soviet cities.
Fartsovniks resold American denim pants for about 200 rubles, despite the fact that the engineer’s monthly salary did not exceed 100–120 rubles. By the way, it was jeans that became one of the main factors in the manifestation of the shadow Soviet economy. The underground workshops, having established the mass production of Texas pants, opened up a wide avenue for speculation.
#6
The appearance of the first leather label on jeans is associated with a legend about a train driver. Not knowing how to fasten the carriages together, he tied them with his pants and thus was able to get to the station.
According to eyewitnesses, Levi Strauss tried to repeat this trick, albeit with the help of horses. And soon after, the famous leather patch of Levi's jeans appeared - two horses trying in vain to tear their pants in half.
Million thanks to the suit
There is a saying in America: “God made people different, but Colonel Colt made them the same.” It is about the fact that the Colt revolver equalized the rights of both the strong and the weak. The same can be said about jeans, because this item of clothing has become common to the wardrobe of a wide variety of people. Today, they are worn by the heirs of the British crown, workers, and popular movie stars.
The thing is that before the 30s of the 20th century, clothes meant much more to Americans than they do today. Without a decent suit it was impossible to achieve success and make a career. It is known that, for example, the famous multi-billionaire Aristotle Onassis, who bought Jacqueline Kennedy as his wife after the assassination of her husband John, began his career as a washer and spent the first $40 of his earnings on an expensive suit.
“The suit actually has a huge impact on the quality of life. There are historical examples of how Onassis, as a very young, ambitious man, bought new clothes only in order to move to a new level in society,” shares the director of the fashion house, designer Irina Selyuta.
On the sidelines of an English club, a smart, resourceful, but extremely poor young man learned that a tobacco crisis was threatening, after which he decided to smuggle tobacco from Mexico. The first scam helped him earn a million.
Jeans were brought to Europe and other countries such as Japan by American troops during World War II. At that time, jeans were part of the uniform of the US Army, so the Americans brought to Japan not only atomic bombs and rock and roll, but also practical pants with the “Made in the USA” label.
By the way, Japanese denim is still considered one of the highest quality in the world. They say that the highest quality of jeans in Japan is explained by the fact that after the war the Americans sold them their outdated equipment, which allowed them to produce very high-quality fabric.
Recently, Japanese fashion designers marketed anti-aging jeans. The fabric is impregnated with amino acids, which prevent age-related processes and protect the skin from harmful bacteria, the effect lasts two years. 55 thousand pairs of these jeans were sold out in four days. The Japanese even managed to combine the latest scientific achievements with fidelity to tradition in their clothing.
#9
The famous Italian designer Roberto Cavalli was the first to experiment with denim. In 1988, he presented original jeans with prints, and, in preparation for the 1994-1995 collection, he applied sandblasting to jeans for the first time, making them distressed.
In addition, it was Cavalli who came up with the idea of adding lycra to cotton fabric, which made the jeans more elastic and “stretchy.”
What jeans are in Hollywood?
Jeans owe their popularity largely to Hollywood. In Westerns of the 1930s, dashing cowboys all wore blue denim. In 1935, Vogue magazine published an article about the ranch with pictures of girls in jeans - and this was no longer a uniform, but a new fashion.
But the real revolution for jeans came in the 1950s, when the screen star and everyone's favorite Marilyn Monroe appeared in jeans in the film The River Never Flows Backward. Many years later, these jeans were sold for $75,000 to singer Britney Spears. In 1956, the cult film “Rebel Without a Cause” was released with James Dean, who also wore denim pants for half of the scenes.
“Aesthetics have penetrated so deeply into the minds of mankind that the most feminine divas of Hollywood also dressed in denim suits - Marlene Dietrich or Marilyn Monroe. All progressive humanity began to wear such clothes,” says designer Vladimir Bukhinnik.
#2
Levi Strauss's first products (for miners and gold miners) were made of rough canvas and had one main drawback - under the weight of tools and gold bars, their pockets often broke off.
Another brilliant man found a way out - tailor Jacob Davis. He suggested that Levi reinforce the joints on his pants with metal rivets from the horse harness. So, in 1873, the famous Levi's riveted jeans with five pockets were born: 2 in the back, 2 in the front and a small pocket (ideal for watches or small coins) on the back of the right front pocket.
Hippies who dressed up the whole world
The global denim boom swept the whole world in the 60s of the last century, during the era of the spread of the hippie subculture. Jeans, as they said then, painted the streets of America and Europe blue. Over time, they began to decorate their pants with rhinestones, stripes, beads and embroidery. These stylistic additions are still popular today.
The popularity of jeans has reached its peak: today they are worn by people of all ages and nations. In China, in 2006, they even opened a monument to jeans - it is a ball made of pants of different shades of blue, weighing up to two tons. The denim line is still produced in all fashion houses: jeans are made in all colors of the rainbow, straight and flared, stretch; suits, dresses, skirts and shorts are sold from denim. Jeans are specially aged, worn, torn and decorated with jewelry.
It is no coincidence that the famous fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent once said that he regretted only one thing in his life - that he did not invent jeans. But if you think that today you can buy classic jeans with the “Made in USA” label, then you are deeply mistaken. The last factory to produce real jeans closed in the United States in 2006. Since then, even Americans themselves have been buying jeans made in China, Indonesia, Mexico and other third world countries with cheap labor.
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Dyeing threads
After the yarn is woven into threads, in denim production the warp thread is dyed. In high-quality jeans, the thread is dyed using the rope dying method. This dyeing is done by machine, the thread is dipped into the dye and dried, this cycle is repeated 7-10 times. Thus, the thread is dyed gradually from a light blue shade to the traditional ink indigo. In this case, the core of the thread itself is not stained and the denim can subsequently tend to rub beautifully over time. Indigo itself is a rather unstable dye, because... it does not dissolve well in water and remains, to one degree or another, a “powder”. However, it is believed that a softer thread made of long-staple cotton, due to its more “loose” structure, is dyed deeper and, accordingly, such jeans fade much more slowly, while jeans made of short-staple cotton, having a more rigid twisted thread, are dyed less deeply and rubbed faster. For some, one option will be preferable, and for others, another.
In the vast majority of cases, dyeing occurs with a synthetic indigo dye. This dye is much less expensive than natural dye and the technology for dyeing with such a dye has been developed over many decades. The chemical dye indigo was invented by the German chemist Adolf von Bauer in 1865.
This chemical dye is often called pure indigo, but it should not be confused with natural indigo, which will be discussed below. The chemical dye was synthesized by Von Bauer from nitrobenzendehyde and acetone. The resulting dye was inexpensive and had a more even color, because... was cleared of various impurities. Very soon, the German chemical company BASF launched a new dye into mass industrial production. Sometimes, to give a certain shade, sulfur is added to the dye, or the thread can be pre-treated with caustic soda. As for natural indigo, jeans dyed with this dye occupy a very narrow niche, are very expensive and are intended for true connoisseurs of denim traditions. As a rule, these are products of Japanese craftsmen. Most often, the indigofera plant is used as a raw material for the dye (however, in some cases, other raw materials of natural origin can be used).
When preparing the dye, the leaves are fermented for a long time. Then, when the dye is ready, the characteristic indigo color begins to appear.
In most cases, dyeing of threads with natural indigo is done by hand using a skein method (although there is a more compromise and less expensive machine method). Needless to say, this is an extremely labor-intensive and exhausting process.
The thread is painstakingly dyed and dried until the desired shade is obtained.
The color of natural indigo is somewhat more uneven and “man-made” than that of pure indigo, for which it is loved by true connoisseurs and perfectionists. These jeans are never mass produced and have a very long production cycle.
If we digress a little from jeans, it is worth saying that indigo dye in one form or another was used by a variety of peoples. In Russia, indigo was used to dye festive clothes, tablecloths, etc. The dye was infused in special vats “cubes”. Master “blue makers” prepared the dye and gave the fabric the desired shade. Here are examples of indigo-dyed items from the 19th century.
#13
On July 13, 2006, a Monument to Jeans was opened in the Chinese city of Xiamen as part of the “Slave of Fashion” exhibition.
The sculpture was a ball weighing about 2 tons, made entirely of jeans. It’s interesting that the cunning Chinese did not disclose the number of pants that went to the monument. But they invited everyone to count for themselves, promising the one who guessed it a prize of $1000.
