The History of Jeans

Jeans can be cheap or expensive, stylish or fuddy-duddy, comfortable or all wrong. At this point, though, the perfect, favorite, ideally-worn pair of jeans is something just about everyone in America can relate to.

Jeans originated as work pants in the 1850′s, but the patent for jeans with copper rivets was filed in 1873. Dry goods merchant Levi Strauss went into business with tailor Jacob Davis; Strauss had been selling the jeans, but Davis noticed how easily certain areas of the pants wore out and came up with the rivet idea.

Jeans didn’t become popular as casual wear until the 1950′s, when James Dean wore the jeans of a generation in Rebel Without a Cause. Prior to that, photographs indicate that jeans were looser-fit, more like overalls without a top part, and meant for work. Soon enough, they were designed for a better fit and a more fashionable set of uses. Prior to the 1960′s, women’s jeans usually had a zipper down the side rather than down the front.

A New York boutique called Limbo first came up with the idea of pre-washed, worn-looking jeans in 1965. In the 1970′s, the technique known as “stone-washing” was born, and throughout the 1980′s and 1990′s, jeans became an absolute wardrobe staple for all types and sizes of people. Today, the average North American owns seven pairs of jeans, according to a cotton company.

Interestingly, a pair of jeans consumes an average of 919 gallons of water during its lifespan, including everything from watering the cotton crop all the way up to the last wash in the machine before they fall apart. Jeans companies are trying to determine a way to make jeans more sustainable, but the price of cotton keeps going up, so it’s likely that the price of jeans will, too.