A Brief History of Jeans By emanueen 6000 BCE First evidence of cotton use found in India and Pakistan 100 Arab traders introduce cotton products to Europe 1650 Denim emerges from Nimes, France 1738 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt patent cotton Roller Spinning Machine 1764 James Hargreaves invents spinning jenny 1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin 1795 The term jeans first appears by a Swiss banker in Genoa 1853 Levi Strauss moves to San Francisco 1873 Strauss and Davis first patent their blue jeans (jeans later dubbed the 501) 1897 German chemist invents synthetic indigo to dye jeans 1914 William Hart stars in 'westerns' wearing jeans, associating jeans with strength and heroism 1935 Denim is distressed to make them more fashionable (seen in Vogue, June 1935) 1939 John Wayne stars in 'Stagecoach' wearing a pair of Levi's 501s Period: 1940 to 1949 US Soldiers and Sailors inadvertently show off jeans as casual wear around the world 1951 Bing Crosby is denied hotel access while wearing all denim. Levi Strauss created denim tuxedo in response 1953 Marlon Brando makes jeans even cooler by wearing them in The Wild One 1954 Marylin Monroe makes jeans appear more attractive and fashionable in 'River of no Return" 1954 Marlboro Man wears jeans while looking cool and tough in the advert 1955 James Dean wears jeans in 'rebel without a cause' 1960 Hippie subculture begins as a youth movement in San Francisco 1962 Levi Strauss introduces pre-shrunk jeans 1976 The Ramones signature look includes skinny jeans 1976 Gloria Vanderbilt launches her own line of designer jeans 1979 Catherine Bach wears daisy dukes in The Dukes of Hazard 1980 Hip Hop popularizes baggy jeans while metal and punk sticks to skinny jeans 1984 Bruce Springsteen wears 501s on the cover of 'Born in the USA' 2000 Time magazine names Levi’s 501s the “Fashion Item of the 20th Century" 2014 Levi's stadium opens in San Francisco and is referred to as Field of Jeans
