A brief history of blue jeans

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    A brief history of blue jeans

    If you ask someone why they wear blue jeans and they reply "because they’re comfortable," they are lying to you in a way that is so total and complete I suspect they are also lying to themselves. Denim is a tough, rugged material meant to withstand time and the elements. Literally any other fabric would feel better against your skin.

    Blue jeans, though, were perfect for cowboys and miners alike. Funnily enough, blue jeans also became popular with polo players. Their pants could easily be ruined if they rode through brambles on a horse, and I suppose it's not very aristocratic to ride around in front of a group of spectators with a great gaping hole in your pants.

    Bavarian immigrant and entrepreneur Levi Strauss cashes in on the Gold Rush by moving from San Francisco to found a wholesale dry goods business, Levi Strauss & Co. He didn’t mine for gold—directly.

    Blue jeans were actually an accidental discovery in the 18th century, when people in Nimes, France attempted to replicate a sturdy Italian fabric called serge. What they created was "serge de Nimes" or, as it’s been shortened to, "denim."

    1873

    Latvian émigré and tailor Jacob Davis and his fabric supplier, Strauss, patent and manufacture the “XX” pants, later dubbed the 501. The U.S. government grants the pair U.S. Patent No. 139,121 for rivet-reinforced pants under the heading, “IMPROVEMENT IN FASTENING POCKET-OPENINGS.”

    1914

    Silent film actor William Hart stars in massively popular westerns wearing jeans, pioneering the image of the blue-jean-clad Western hero. After WWI, his celebrity gets a boost as the U.S. film industry—unlike that in war-torn Europe—flourishes

    1939

    John Wayne stars in the western film Stagecoach wearing a par of Levi’s 501s. There are some things a man just can’t run away from…

    1940s

    U.S. soldiers and sailors serving overseas act as inadvertent ambassadors for jeans, introducing them as casual wear around the globe.

    1951

    Singer-actor extraordinaire Bing Crosby gets turned away from a fancy Canadian hotel for wearing all denim. Levi & Strauss sends him a custom denim tuxedo with a “Notice to All Hotel Men” declaring the outfit acceptable formal attire, thus allegedly originating the term “Canadian tuxedo.” (Richard Branson ordered and wore a replica recently.)

    1953

    Marlon Brando makes the 501 even edgier in the classic motorcycle gang film The Wild One. Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?

    1954

    Norma jeans? Marilyn Monroe pumps up the sex appeal of blue jeans in River of No Return. A New York Timescritic observes, “It is a toss-up whether the scenery or the adornment of Marilyn Monroe is the feature of greater attraction.” Guess jeans later recreates the pose in ads featuring Anna Nicole Smith, among other models.

    1954

    Got a light? The marketing campaign “Marlboro Man” debuts as the tobacco industry seeks to make filtered cigarettes more masculine through association with cowboy attire, including denim of course.

    1967

    Psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane records trippy radio advertisements for white Levi’s.

    1967

    Paul Newman: denim-on-denim. Enough said.

    1970

    Hey ho, let’s go. Punk rockers The Ramones liked their jeans cut snug and skinny. They showed off their signature look on the cover of their 1977 record, “Rocket to Russia.” Not even ripped knees could stop those cretins from hoppin’.

    1976

    Heiress Gloria Vanderbilt launches her designer denim jeans. Never one to miss a beat, Saturday Night Livecomedian Gilda Radner later jokes, “She’s taken her good family name and put it on the asses of America.”

    1979

    Scantily clad Catherine Bach wears ultra-short “Daisy Dukes” in The Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Celeb Jessica Simpson later reprises the role on film in 2005.

    1980s

    Hip-hop popularizes baggy jeans. On the opposite end of the spectrum, punk rockers and metalheads stick to skinny jeans.

     1981

    Fifteen-year-old supermodel Brooke Shields shocks audiences with in a Calvin Klein designer jeans ad. “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?” she asks. “Nothing.”

    1984

    Born in the USA? Heck, yeah. Bruce Springsteen’s 501-swadled buttocks stand guard in front of an American flag. You can bet he danced in the dark in those, too.

    2000

    "Time magazine names Levi’s 501s the “Fashion Item of the 20th Century.” A year later, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears take that counsel to the extreme on the red carpet at the 2001 American Music Awards.

    2014

    The Field of Jeans. Levi’s Stadium opens as the new home of the San Francisco 49ers. And so blue jeans come full circle, from gold rush to pass rush.

    http://fortune.com/2014/09/18/brief-history-of-blue-jeans/

    http://www.racked.com/2015/2/27/8116465/the-complete-history-of-blue-jeans-from-miners-to-marilyn-monroe