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What does it mean
The word jeans comes from a kind of material that was made in Europe. The material, called jean, was named after sailors from Genoa in Italy, because they wore clothes made from it. -
First Jeans
At first, jean cloth was made from a mixture of things. However, in the eighteenth century as trade, slave labour, and cotton plantations increased, jean cloth was made completely from cotton. Workers wore it because the material was very strong and it did not wear out easily. It was usually dyed with indigo, a dye taken from plants in the Americas and India, which made jean cloth a dark blue colour. -
Leob Strauss
In 1853, a man called Leob Strauss left his home in New York and moved to San Francisco, where he started a wholesale business, supplying clothes. Strauss later changed his name from Leob to Levi. -
The War
Fewer jeans were made during the time of World War 2, but 'waist overalls' were introduced to the world by American soldiers, who sometimes wore them when they were off duty. After the war, Levi began to sell their clothes outside the American West. Rival companies, like Wrangler and Lee, began to compete with Levi for a share of this new market. -
Popularity of Jeans
In the 1950's, denim became popular with young people. It was the symbol of the teenage rebel in TV programmes and movies. Some schools in the USA banned students from wearing denim. Teenagers called the waist overalls 'jean pants' - and the name stayed. -
Hippies & the Cold War
In the 1960's many, many university and college students wore jeans. Different styles of jeans were made, to match the 60's fashions: embroidered jeans, painted jeans, psychedelic jeans... In many non-western countries, jeans became a symbol of 'Western decadence' and were very hard to get. US companies said that they often received letters from people all around the world asking them to send the writer a pair of jeans -
Sweatshops
As regulations on world trade became more relaxed in the late 1970's, jeans started to be made more and more in sweatshops in countries in the South. Because the workers were paid very little, jeans became cheaper. More people in the countries of the South started wearing jeans. -
Designer Jeans
In the 1980's jeans finally became high fashion clothing, when famous designers started making their own styles of jeans, with their own labels on them. Sales of jeans went up and up. -
Jeans Today
Today, jeans are the stuff of high-end designer wear.
