JEANSÂÂ’ HISTORY

I was searching on Google the name of a type of jeans ‘washing and I unexpectedly found out a page about the jeans’ history and I wanted to know more about it.

The first thing that passed through my mind was that there is always more to learn, even after 30 years of activity, and so guided by this consciousness I wanted to share this with you.

I believe, actually I am sure, that jeans are the most sold and requested clothing items in the world, with their multiple aspects, because they are appreciated by any class, age and genre.

The blue jeans were not invented by Americans, as one may think, but by Italians. The first hint goes back to Genova, in the sixteenth century and more precisely to the old harbour where this blue cloth was created and used for the fabrication of ship’s sails and covering sheets because it was very resistant, enduring and easily washable.

The words blue-jeans probably come from the sentence “Blue de genes”, blue of Genova.

With the great emigrations, in the nineteenth-century, the blue cloth of Genova arrived in America where it was used to create working clothes for the miners and that is why the name turned from “Blue de genes” to blue-jeans. The term jeans was then used to design trousers’ model, not the fabric. In 1873 the first denim jeans were born thanks to Levi Strauss that opened in San Francisco a store of items for gold-diggers and using the denim, created the first jeans with a tailor.

The cow-boys of the Far West used the fabric to create trousers and robust jackets and from that moment on jeans were used pretty much everywhere. Military, Garibaldi’s troops, movie actors (Marlon Brando and James Dean), college guys and girls all used them and then they finally entered the fashion world.

With time, a lot of models were invented: bell-bottoms, slim, close-fitting, high-waisted, low-waisted, with zips, buttons, a lot of different colours and models, using so many shades. In the ‘90s, the worn versions of jeans became very popular: delavé, with holes, tears, enriched with jewels, according to the stylists’ own creativity.

Jeans are clothing items that you can tear, mend and enrich without making them lose their soul. You can basically wear them every day so they can be sporty if you wear them with sweatshirts or elegant if you wear them with a shirt and a jacket.

In conclusion, I would like to add that if you find yourself in Genoa, go to the old harbour to see a pair of jeans so big it could be a Guinness World Records. Manufactured in 2004, it’s 18 metres high and was created with 600 pairs of old jeans and hoisted on a crane of the old harbour to remember the birth of the jeans fabric.