Nobody denies America's love affair with jeans: the most adaptable clothing in our wardrobes. Learn more about its history and how to find a pair that will flatter your body type.
Jeans are the most versatile, lived-in, and best-loved item of clothing in history. Unless you don’t wear pants (and if not, I don’t even want to know why), chances are you have a favorite pair, and I bet you’ll stubbornly refuse to get rid of them until they’re threadbare. Whether they’re baggy or fit like a second skin, faded or acid-washed, beat-up or flawless, jeans are a wardrobe staple – and an American classic.
It’s in our “jeans:" a bit of history.
His name was Loeb Strauss, and he was born in Bavaria in 1829. When he was eighteen, he sailed to New York with his mother and sisters to meet his brothers, who ran a dry-goods store. He worked for them, selling bolts of cloth and linen, and by the time he was twenty-one he had changed his name to Levi. Three years later, after becoming an American citizen, Strauss moved to San Francisco. He felt there was a lot of opportunity for him there, largely because of the recent gold rush. Soon, he opened the West-coast branch of his brothers’ dry goods store and distributed clothing, bedding, and underwear to small stores all throughout the West.
In 1872, Strauss got a letter that shaped the history of fashion. The letter was from a tailor in Reno, Nevada, named Jacob Davis. Davis wrote that he’d come up with a great idea to improve the strength and durability of the work pants he sold, he had started attaching copper rivets to the points of strain, and customers loved it. The idea should be patented, Davis wrote to Strauss, but he didn’t have the money required to file the papers for obtaining a patent, so he made a proposal: if Strauss paid for the application, the two men could team up making riveted clothing and earn a great deal.
And that’s exactly what happened. The patent for an “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings” was granted to Davis and Strauss on May 20, 1873, and they began manufacturing durable pants especially for use as work-wear: “waist overalls.” The waist overalls were made of denim because it was a tough and sturdy material.
Levi Strauss died in 1902, but his four nephews – Jacob, Louis, Abraham, and Sigmund Stern – took over the thriving business. Jacob Davis sold them his share of the company in 1907. By the 1920s, the company’s waist overalls were the top-selling men’s work pants in the Western states. Cowboys began wearing the pants, and during the 1930s, a “wild West” movie craze elevated their status; they were no longer associated solely with workers, but with rugged, swaggering cowboy types played by the likes of John Wayne. Because of this, they became more popular with young men. During World War II, they were taken overseas with young GIs and worn during leisure time; soldiers were the heroes of that era, so since they were wearing waist overalls, everyone else wanted to wear them too. It was during this time that the waist overalls got their new name: jeans.
In the 1950s, Levi Strauss & Company began distributing their jeans nationwide, no longer confined to selling them exclusively on the West coast. As in previous decades, cultural icons heavily influenced the popularity of jeans; actors such as James Dean and Marlon Brando wore them in their movies. Teenage boys aspiring to reach “rebel” status adopted jeans as everyday wear. By the 1970s, both men and women were wearing jeans and modifying them in fashionable ways: making cutoffs, embroidering designs, and of course, the beloved bellbottom. These days, jeans are one of the most adaptable items in the wardrobe of both sexes. They come in a larger-than-ever variety of washes, designs, and brands, and can be dressed up or down accordingly.
It’s a good thing that young Loeb Strauss decided to change his name to Levi. After all, can you imagine slipping into a pair of “Loeb 501s?”