Jeans
Blue jeans have been a part of American culture for over 125 years. They became not only an expression of American fashion but also an element of American identity recognized around the world. Jeans started in the nineteenth century as work clothes, customized to the needs of gold rush miners in California. They have evolved through the decades to represent the rugged individualism of the American West, the nonconformity of the rebel, and the height of designer fashion.
The first jeans were made as a joint venture by a Bavarian immigrant shop owner named Levi Strauss (c. 1829–1902) and a San Francisco tailor named Jacob Davis. Davis had designed a pair of work pants with metal rivets on the pockets and seams to help them hold up under the rough use of the California miners, who filled their pockets with heavy ore samples. Strauss supplied the money to buy a patent for the new work pants, which they called "waist overalls." They made their pants out of a sturdy new fabric from France, called serge de Nimes (pronounced sairzh duh NEEM). The French term was soon shortened in America to "denim."
Strauss' denim work overalls were worn by miners and cowboys all across the west. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, they gained a different kind of popularity when moviegoers saw them on the stars of Western (see entry under 1930s—Film and Theater in volume 2) films, like John Wayne (1907–1979; see entry under 1930s—Film and Theater in volume 2) and Gary Cooper (1901–1961; see entry under 1930s—Film and Theater in volume 2). During World War II (1939–45), the Navy and the Coast Guard used them as part of their official uniform. After the war, they became available for the first time east of the Mississippi. In the 1950s and 1960s, jeans became the official uniform of rebellion, as stars like Marlon Brando (1924–) and James Dean (1931–1954; see entry under 1950s—Film and Theater in volume 3) wore them with T-shirts (see entry under 1910s—Fashion in volume 1) and leather jackets. Teenagers of the era rushed to buy the newly hip pants. Parents and teachers were just as determined to forbid them in schools and other respectable places. In the 1950s, the waist overalls began to be called jeans, a more relaxed name for pants that were no longer simply work clothes.
Perhaps because of their comfort, which only increases with age, or their adaptability, jeans have remained a staple of the American casual wardrobe, especially for young people. In the politically radical late 1960s and early 1970s, the look became patched and faded. In the 1980s, punks wore torn jeans, sometimes only held together by threads, while the wealthy paid hundreds of dollars for jeans from famous fashion designers. Although basic blue jeans are still a standard garment in the twenty-first century, collectors pay high prices to own a pair of Strauss and Davis' original waist overalls.
For More Information
Adkins, Jan. "The Evolution of Jeans: American History 501." Mother Earth News (No. 124, July-August 1990): pp. 60–65.
Caro, Joseph J. "Levi's: Pants That Won the West." Antiques and Collecting Magazine (Vol. 98, no. 11): pp. 38–43.
Gromer, Cliff. "Outdoors Levi's Jeans." Popular Mechanics (Vol. 176, iss. 5, May 1999): pp. 94–98.
"True Blue." Esquire (Vol. 122, no. 1, July 1994): pp. 102–7.
Weidt, Maryann N. Blue Jeans: A Story About Levi Strauss. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1990.
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