THE EVOLUTION OF JEANS
The history of denim, slacks, trousers and pants.
CLOTHES THAT WORK
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American History 501
Samoans have lavalavas. Greeks have pom-poms on their
shoes. Japanese have kimonos. Austrians have those Chico
Marx hats but with deer fir pins. Out of our melting pot
and our push west came the clothes that are a part of
the American image.
If you could take the hand of an angel and fly back to your
own best day, it is doubtful that you would be wearing a
three-piece suit. No, I don't mean your wedding day, but
the day you felt yourself most comfortable and full of
purpose. Chances are, you would have been wearing a pair of
jeans. Blue jeans, Levi's, dungarees, denims: cotton work
trousers of heavy blue drill that gain comfort and
character with age.
Downstairs, I have a drawerful of old jeans that I can't
bear to throw out. Jeans live with you so intimately that
they take on a life of their own. Haven't you ever reached
for a pair of gabardines with the intention of attending a
meeting, when a pair of jeans, hanging in the closet with a
ranger belt already looped through, stopped you:
Whoa,pilgrim.Look out that window. That's some day,
right? Hang those clerking pants back up and let's get out
of here.
In 1853, a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss, an astute
merchant in San Francisco, responded to the gold-rush need
for tough miner's clothes. He had his stock of brown cotton
tent canvas run up as plain trousers, no belt loops and no
back pockets. A cinch belt in the back kept them up.
Scrabbling among too many rocks and too little gold,
crawling along shafts, wrestling timber supports and balky
dray mules, Strauss's "overalls" lasted. They were cheap
and they felt good.
Strauss switched to denim ( from serge de Nimes ,
a twill made in southern France) and had it dyed in
reliable, uniform indigo. By the I860s, Levi Strauss's blue
pants were daily wear for miners and farmers and cattlemen
throughout the West. In 1873 he bought, for $69 — the
price of the patent application — an idea from a
Russian immigrant tailor in Reno for making miner's pants
stronger by riveting the critical seams. They were
nicknamed jeans after the city of Genoa, where sailors wore
blue cotton canvas.
By 1880 the Levi was full-blown, with orange stitching
(including the trademark "arcuate" design across the back
pockets, once the functional anchor for pocket lining), bar
tacking, rivets, watch pocket and the "Two Horse" leather
patch. Lot numbers are assigned to products and, for the
OI-weight denim used, the "waist-high overalls" are called
501s. It's true; more so than most of the thin ghosts we
call up for our heritage, Levi's are rooted in the real
stuff.
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