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The story of jeans begins
in the city of Genoa,
in Italy,
famous for its cotton
corduroy.
Jean fabric from Genoa (at that time) was in fact very similar to
corduroy; Genoese sailors started to use it to cover and protect their
goods on the docks from the weather.
During the Republic
of Genoa, the jeans were exported by sailors of Genoa
throughout Europe. Gênes, the French word for Genoa,
may therefore be the origin of the word "jeans". In the French
city of Nimes, weavers tried to reproduce the fabric exactly, but without
success. However, with experimentation, and through trial and error, they
developed another twill fabric that became known as denim, literally
"de Nimes".
Only at the end of the nineteenth century did jeans arrive in the United
States. -Source:
wikipedia.org
Levi Straus and Jacob
Davis
It was recently discovered
that the first jeans made by Levi Straus and his partner Jacob Davis were
made of brown cotton duck (a type of bottomweight fabric) after 1873.
Finding denim a more suitable material for work-pants, they began using it
to manufacture their riveted pants. The denim used was produced by an
American textile manufacturer, but popular legend states the denim was
obtained from Nimes,
France.
While Levi Strauss is
credited with the advent of of jeans in the United States, the popularity
of jeans has risen through the years, and now there are many manufacturers
of jeans worldwide.
See Levi's
Jeans for the full story of Levi's Jeans.
Some other popular U.S. brands:
Wrangler
Lucky Brand
Jeans
Guess
True
Religion
Lee
Gap
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