Jeans over the years

Jeans were invented on accident by Levi Strauss in the late 1800s. Levi Strauss didn’t get canvas. The store ran out of canvas and sent a subsituion instead. Denim. He didn’t have time to wait for his original order because he had to make pants for the miners during the California gold rush.(Blue Jean Book) He sent his new pants to the miners and found they were stronger and more comfortable than the canvas. (Blue Jean Book) When miners found they could be worn wet more comfortably than canvas Levi donated jeans to the navy. (All Sources)

The U.S. navy needed pants that could be comfortable wet or dry. When the navy was doing drills they found they couldn’t swim with them on, or pull them off quickly if they had to abandon ship. (Interview)They contacted Levi and made the complaint. Levi needed to make jeans that weren’t as slim.(Blue Jean Book) He thought of bellbottoms. Bellbottoms were named for there shape around the lower leg. The navy were the first people to bleach jeans. Not for style or on purpose. They had to wash their jeans by pulling all the jeans in a net behind the boat then lay them on the deck to dry. (Wikipedia)

Levi decided to build a company and he called it Levi Strauss and co. After a few years of business, Levi got together with Ripley’s believe it or not (a freak show at the time) and did two things with jeans. First they hung a car in the air with two pairs of jeans before the pants ripped. Then someone went on a 20 mile crawl in a pair of jeans and the jeans weren’t worn out at all. That proved they were strong and durable.(Blue Jean Book)

In the 1930s other companies started making their own versions of jeans. Nobody could tell the difference between Levi’s jeans and another company’s. The other company’s jeans weren’t as strong so they were getting more money due to the people’s consent buying of clothing. During the great depression, people needed strong, long-lasting, cheap, durable pants from Levi. Levi put a design on the back of the pockets. It’s the only way to tell apart jeans from Levi’s jeans.  Levi helped save the great depression.

In the 1950s teenagers started wearing jeans into style. They had them rind stoned, bleaching parts to make jeans  look lighter on the knees.  Pretty soon people were ripping jeans and now boys let them be baggy with no belts.