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Jeans are pants traditionally made from denim, but may also be made from a variety of fabrics including corduroy. Originally work clothes, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's, Jordache, and Wrangler. Today jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors.
The earliest known pre-cursor for jeans is the Indian export of a thick cotton cloth, in the 16th century, known as dungaree. Dyed in indigo, it was sold near the Dongarii Fort near Mumbai. Sailors cut it to suit them. [1]
Jeans were first created in Genoa, Italy when the city was an independent republic and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose pants for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white. The first denim came from Nîmes, France, hence de Nimes, the name of the fabric. The French bleu de Gênes, from the Italian blu di Genova, literally the "blue of Genoa" dye of their fabric, is the root of the names for these pants, "jeans" and "blue jeans," today.
In the 1850s Levi Strauss, a German dry goods merchant living in San Francisco, was selling blue jeans under the "Levi's" name to the mining communities of California. One of Strauss's customers was Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co wholesale house. After one of Davis's customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they both go into business together. After Strauss accepted Davis's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received patent #139,121, a patent for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings," from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Fits of jeans are determined by current styles, gender, and by the manufacturer. Here are some of the fits produced for jeans:
Rises in jeans (the distance from the crotch to the waistband) range from high-waisted to superlow-rise. Jeans for men usually have a longer rise and zipper, whereas women have a shorter rise and zipper, although exceptions do exist.
Recycled blue jean is becoming a popular insulation material in the construction of houses. Due to its low relative synthetic chemical composition and because it is made of recycled materials, it is gaining prominence in green building circles. Like conventional insulation, it moderates temperature and reduces sound transfer between floors or rooms.