Monday, December 13, 2010
History of Blue Jeans
Blue Jeans
Levi Strauss, a young immigrant from Germany, arrived in San Francisco in 1850. California was in the middle of the Gold Rush. Thousands of men were coming to California to dig for gold. And Levi Strauss came to sell canvas to these gold miners. Canvas is a heavy fabric. So Levi Strauss thought the miners could use the canvas for tents.
One day Strauss heard a miners complain that he couldn’t find clothes strong enough for the work he was doing. Strauss got an idea. He quickly took some of his canvas and made it into pants. These pants were what the miners needed. In one day Strauss sold all the pants he had made.
Strauss wanted to improve his pants. He wanted to make them oven better. He bought a fabric that was softer than canvas but just as strong. This fabric came from Nimes, a city in France, and was called serge de Nimes . The miners liked this fabric. They called it “ Denim “ (from de Nimes) and bought even more pants from Strauss.
However, denim had no color. Because of this the denim pants did not look very interesting, and they got dirty easily. To solve these problems, Strauss dyed the denim blue.
Strauss continued to improve his jeans. Today, the company he started is known around the world. And jeans are considered not just practical but very fashionable as well.
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