Jeans

A traditional women's Genoese dress in "blue jeans" (1890s). Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria, Genoa, Italy.

Research on the trade of jean fabric shows that it emerged in the cities of Genoa, Italy, and Nîmes, France. Gênes, the French word for Genoa, may be the origin of the word "jeans". In Nîmes, weavers tried to reproduce jean fabric but instead developed a similar twill fabric that became known as denim, from de Nîmes, meaning "from Nîmes". Genoa's jean fabric was a fustian textile of "medium quality and of reasonable cost", very similar to cotton corduroy for which Genoa was famous, and was "used for work clothes in general". The Genoese navy equipped its sailors with jeans, as they needed a fabric which could be worn wet or dry.[4][5] Nîmes's "denim" was coarser, considered higher quality, and was used "for over garments such as smocks or overalls".[6] In 1576 a quantity of "jean fustians" arrived into the port of Barnstaple on a vessel from Bristol.[7] Nearly all indigo, needed for dyeing, came from indigo bush plantations in India until the late 19th century. It was replaced by indigo synthesis methods developed in Germany.[8]

Copper rivets for reinforcing pockets are a characteristic feature of blue jeans.

By the 17th century, jean was a crucial textile for working-class people in Northern Italy. This is seen in a series of genre paintings from around the 17th century attributed to an artist now nicknamed The Master of the Blue Jeans.[9] The ten paintings depict impoverished scenes with lower-class figures wearing a fabric that looks like denim. The fabric would have been Genoese jean, which was cheaper. Genre painting came to prominence in late 16th century, and the non-nobility subject matter in all ten paintings places them among others that portray similar scenes.[10]

Dungaree was mentioned for the first time in the 17th century, when it was referred to as cheap, coarse thick cotton cloth, often colored blue but sometimes white, worn by impoverished people in what was then a region of Bombay, India a dockside village called Dongri. This cloth was "dungri" in Hindi. Dungri was exported to England and used for manufacturing of cheap, robust working clothes. In English, the word "dungri" became pronounced as "dungaree".[11]

Jacob Davis

Levi Strauss

The term jeans appears first in 1795, when a Swiss banker by the name Jean-Gabriel Eynard and his brother Jacques went to Genoa and both were soon heading a flourishing commercial concern. In 1800 Massena's troops entered the town and Jean-Gabriel was entrusted with their supply. In particular he furnished them with uniforms cut from blue cloth called "bleu de Genes" whence later derives the famous garment known worldwide as "blue jeans".[12]

Levi Strauss, as a young man in 1851, went from Germany to New York to join his older brothers who ran a goods store. In 1853, he moved to San Francisco to open his own dry goods business. Jacob Davis was a tailor who often bought bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale house. In 1872, Davis wrote to Strauss asking to partner with him to patent and sell clothing reinforced with rivets.[13] The copper rivets were to reinforce the points of stress, such as pocket corners and at the bottom of the button fly. Strauss accepted Davis's offer,[14] and the two men received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" on May 20, 1873.[15]

The classic label for Levi 501 jeans.

Davis and Strauss experimented with different fabrics. An early attempt was brown cotton duck, a bottom-weight fabric.[lower-alpha 1] Finding denim a more suitable material for work-pants, they began using it to manufacture their riveted pants. The denim used was produced by an American manufacturer. Popular legend incorrectly states that it was imported from Nimes, France. A popular myth is that Strauss initially sold brown canvas pants to miners, later dyed them blue, turned to using denim, and only after Davis wrote to him, added rivets.[13]

Initially, Strauss's jeans were simply sturdy trousers worn by factory workers, miners, farmers, and cattlemen throughout the North American West.[16][17] During this period, men's jeans had the fly down the front, whereas women's jeans had the fly down the left side.[18] When Levi Strauss & Co. patented the modern, mass-produced prototype in the year 1873, there were two pockets in the front and one on the back right with copper rivets.[12] The small riveted watch pocket was first added by Levi Strauss to their jeans in the late 1870s.[19]

In 1901 Levi Strauss added the back left pocket to their 501 model.[20] This created the now familiar and industry standard five pocket configuration with two large pockets and small watch pocket in front with two pockets on the rear.

Fewer jeans were made during World War II, but 'waist overalls' were introduced to the world by US soldiers, who sometimes wore them off duty.[21][22] By the 1960s, both men's and women's jeans had the zipper down the front. Historic photographs indicate that in the decades before they became a staple of fashion, jeans generally fit quite loosely, much like a pair of bib overalls without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss called its flagship product "waist overalls" rather than "jeans".

After James Dean popularized them in the movie Rebel Without a Cause, wearing jeans became a symbol of youth rebellion during the 1950s.[23][24] During the 1960s the wearing of jeans became more acceptable, and by the 1970s it had become general fashion in the United States for casual wear.[25] In Japan in 1977, a professor of Osaka University Philip Karl Pehda chastised a female student wearing jeans in the classroom. Then he was protested by the students, and a controversy arose in the country.[26][27]

Examples of intentional denim distressing strictly to make them more fashionable can be seen as early as 1935 in Vogue's June issue.[28] Michael Belluomo, editor of Sportswear International Magazine, Oct/Nov 1987, P. 45, wrote that in 1965, Limbo, a boutique in the New York East Village, was "the first retailer to wash a new pair of jeans to get a used, worn effect, and the idea became a hit." He continued, "[Limbo] hired East Village artists to embellish the jeans with patches, decals, and other touches, and sold them for $200." In the early 1980s the denim industry introduced the stone-washing technique developed by GWG also known as "Great Western Garment Co." Donald Freeland of Edmonton, Alberta pioneered the method,[29] which helped to bring denim to a larger and more versatile market. Acceptance of jeans continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Originally an esoteric fashion choice, in the 2010s jeans may be seen being worn by men and women of all ages.[30]

Chemical structure of indigo dye, the blue of blue jeans.

Traditionally, jeans were dyed to a blue color using natural indigo dye. Most denim is now dyed using synthetic indigo. Approximately 20 thousand tons of indigo are produced annually for this purpose, though only a few grams of the dye are required for each pair.[31] For other colors of denim other dyes must be used. Currently, jeans are produced in any color that can be achieved with cotton.

For more information on dyeing, refer to denim and the discussion there of using pigment dyes.

Young people wearing a variety of jean styles, including carpenter jeans, bootcut jeans, drainpipe jeans and lowrise jeans. (Rome, 2008)

In 1962 Levi Strauss introduced their own pre-shrunk jeans (Lee and Wrangler jeans had already long been pre-shrunk); these did not shrink further after purchase, allowing the consumer to purchase a correctly fitting size. Pre-shrink is most common in jeans nowadays.[32] These jeans were known as the 505 regular fit jeans. The 505 are almost identical to the 501s with the exception of the button-fly. The Levi's Corporation also introduced a slim boot-cut fit known as 517 and 527. The difference between the two is the 517s sit at the waist line and the 527s sit below the waist line. Later, Levi's would develop other styles and fits such as the loose, slim, comfort, relaxed, skinny, and a regular fit with a tapered leg.

Ronald Reagan wearing stonewash denim associated with Western clothing, 1970s

The used or "acid wash" look is created by means of abrading the jeans and/or treating them with chemicals, such as acryl resin, phenol, a hypochlorite, potassium permanganate, caustic soda, acids etc.[33]

Ripping or distressing of jeans, though also arising naturally as a result of wear and tear, is sometimes deliberately performed by suppliers—with distressed clothing sometimes selling for more than a nondistressed pair. For example, Pucci sold "embellished mid-rise boyfriend jeans" for £600 (US$860).[34]

Consumers wanting jeans that appear worn can buy jeans that have been specially treated. To give the fabrics the worn look, sandblasting done with chemicals or by adding pumice stone to the washing process or abrading with sandpaper is often done.

A typical pair of blue jeans uses 919 gallons (3479 liters) of water during its life cycle. This includes the water to irrigate the cotton crop, manufacture the jeans, and the numerous washes by the consumer.[35]

The production of jeans with a "used look" can be more environmentally damaging than regular jeans,[36] depending on how the waste compounds are processed. Sandblasting and treating with sandpaper has the risk of causing silicosis to the workers, and in Turkey, more than 5,000 textile workers have been stricken with this disease, and 46 people are known to have died. Some companies have announced they are banning the use of sandblasting.[37]

In Rome, Italy, in 1992, a 45-year-old driving instructor was accused of rape. When he picked up an 18-year-old girl for her first driving lesson, he allegedly raped her for an hour, then told her that if she was to tell anyone he would kill her. Later that night she told her parents and her parents agreed to help her press charges. While the alleged rapist was convicted and sentenced, the Italian Court of Cassation overturned the conviction in 1998 because the victim wore tight jeans. It was argued that she must have necessarily had to help her attacker remove her jeans, thus making the act consensual ("because the victim wore very, very tight jeans, she had to help him remove them... and by removing the jeans... it was no longer rape but consensual sex"). The court stated in its decision "it is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them."[40]

The ruling sparked widespread feminist protest. The day after the decision, women in the Italian Parliament protested by wearing jeans and holding placards that read "Jeans: An Alibi for Rape". As a sign of support, the California Senate and the California Assembly followed suit. Patricia Giggans, the executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (now Peace Over Violence) soon made Denim Day an annual event. As of 2011 at least 20 U.S. states officially recognize Denim Day in April. Wearing jeans on that day has become an international symbol of protest against such attitudes about sexual assault. As of 2008, the court has overturned its findings, and there is no longer a "denim" defense to the charge of rape.

In 2014, an Indian family court in Mumbai ruled that a husband's objection to his wife wearing a kurta and jeans and forcing her to wear a sari amounts to cruelty inflicted by the husband and can be a ground to seek a divorce.[41] The wife was thus granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty as defined under Section 27(1)(d) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954.[41]

North America accounts for 39% of global purchases for jeans, followed by Western Europe at 20%, Japan and Korea at 10% and the rest of the world at 31%.[42]

United States consumers spent more than US$14 billion on jeans in 2004 and US$15 billion in 2005.[43] US consumers bought US$13.8 billion of men's and women's jeans in the year that ended April 30, 2011, according to market-research firm NPD Group.[44]

In the Soviet Union, jeans were the symbol of the Western way of life. The "jeans fever" in the USSR started in 1957 during the World Festival of Youth and Students.[45] According to a 1961 Soviet textile dictionary, jeans were initially referred to as a "worker's uniform" (рабочий костюм, rabochii kostyum).[46]

The jeans brand Rokotov and Fainberg is named after the defendants in the Rokotov–Faibishenko case, who were executed for, among other things, trafficking in jeans.[45]

Although not outright banned, jeans were hard to come by in Soviet Union since they were seen as a symbol of rebellion by the Soviet youth, who wanted to emulate the style of film and rock stars of the West. The Soviet government resisted supplying the market with jeans as it would mean responding to the market, a capitalist principle.[47] People went to great lengths, sometimes by resorting to violence and other illegal activities, to obtain real Western-made jeans. That led to the creation of black markets and to the bootlegging of jeans, which since has become an important cultural element of the history of the Soviet Union.[48]

In 2014, teens were buying more fashion and athleisure clothing from brands such as Nike and Lululemon over denim classics from brands like Abercrombie & Fitch.[49] Activewear in 2014 comprised 28% of teens' apparel purchases, up from 6% in 2008. In 2014, Nike, Lululemon, Under Armour, and Adidas were the most popular brands for athletic apparel among teen consumers. Fashion retailers have begun to adjust their offerings accordingly. Bloomberg reports that Levi's stuck to its core product (denim) instead of adapting to consumer trends. As a result, Levi's sales decreased from over US$7 billion to US$4.8 billion in 2015.[50]

Ripped jeans

Distressed denim emerged from the cultural punk movement in the 1970s. Early punks tore apart consumer goods as an expression of their anger towards society.[52] Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols manifested the British punk ideology, which was fighting against the status quo. Denim became a key target of this politically fueled deconstruction, with both men and women donning torn pants and jackets, accessorized with safety pins and slogans. The trend became popular again in the 1990s with the emergence of grunge fashion. If punk was "anti-fashion", grunge was "non-fashion". The grunge youth wore loose-fitting ripped jeans, flannel shirts or woolen Pendletons layered over T-shirts. Their anti-conformist approach to fashion led to the popularization of the casual chic look, a trend which continued into the 2000s.

Media reported in 2017 that the trend of low-rise jeans, famous in 1990s and 2000s as sagging, was coming back in fashion due to celebrities like Justin Bieber endorsing it.[53] Low-rise jeans are usually worn 2-3 inches or more below the navel.[54]