thumb|A pair of jeans
thumb|right|Microscopic image of faded fabric
Jeans are a type of trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with the addition of copper pocket rivets added by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and patented by Davis and Levi Strauss on May 20, 1873. Prior to the patent, the term "blue jeans" had been long in use for various items of workwear (including trousers, overalls, and coats), constructed from a heavy blue-colored denim fabric.
Originally these trousers were designed as attire for manual workers such as miners for whom rivets were added to strengthen pocket seams in the United States, these modern riveted blues jeans as a fashion item were popularized as casual wear by Marlon Brando and James Dean in their 1950s films, particularly The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause, leading to the fabric becoming a symbol of rebellion among teenagers, especially members of the greaser subculture. From the 1960s onwards, jeans became common among various youth subcultures and subsequently young members of the general population. Nowadays, they are one of the most popular types of trousers in Western culture. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler.
History
Fabric
thumb|180px|A traditional women's Genoese dress in "blue jeans" (1890s). [[Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria, Genoa, Italy.]]
Indigo dyed cotton textiles have been produced and traded from India for millenia, the textiles becoming known, in the 18th century, as ‘blue goods’ in English, or ‘guinée’ in French, and were a core trade good of the Indian Ocean, and Atlantic slave trades. Nearly all indigo, needed for dyeing, came from indigo bush plantations in India, until replaced by indigo synthesis methods developed in Germany in 1878.
Research on the trade of jean fabric shows that it emerged in the city of Genoa, Italy, in the 16th century, followed by Nîmes, France, in the 17th century. Genoa's jeans fabric was a fustian textile of "medium quality and of reasonable cost", very similar to cotton corduroy for which Genoa was famous, and was "used for work clothes in general". The Genoese navy equipped its sailors with jeans, as they needed a fabric that could be worn wet or dry. Gênes, the French word for Genoa, is the origin of the word "jeans". In Nîmes, weavers tried to reproduce jean fabric but instead developed a similar twill fabric that became known as denim, "de Nîmes", meaning "from Nîmes". Nîmes's "denim" was coarser, considered higher quality, and was used "for over garments such as smocks or overalls".
thumb|left|Copper [[rivets for reinforcing pockets are a characteristic feature of blue jeans.]]
By the 17th century, jean was a crucial textile for working-class people in Northern Italy. This is seen in a series of genre paintings from around the 17th century attributed to an artist now referred to as the Master of the Blue Jeans.
Dungaree, a type of fabric, was mentioned for the first time in 1613, when it was referred to as coarse calico cloth, often colored blue but sometimes bleached white, worn by impoverished workers in what was then a region of Bombay, India a dockside village called Dongri. This cloth was "dungri" in Hindi. Dungri was exported to England and used for manufacturing of cheap, robust working clothes such as overalls. In English, the word "dungri" became pronounced as "dungaree". It was used by utility workers of the US Navy throughout World War I. The copper rivets were to reinforce the points of stress, such as pocket corners and at the bottom of the button fly. Strauss accepted Davis's offer, and the two men received US patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" on May 20, 1873.
thumb|The classic label for Levi 501 jeans
Davis and Strauss experimented with different fabrics. An early attempt was brown cotton duck, a bottom-weight fabric. Finding denim a more suitable material for work-pants, they began using it to manufacture their riveted pants. The denim used was produced by an American manufacturer. Popular legend incorrectly states that it was imported from Nîmes. A popular myth is that Strauss initially sold brown canvas pants to miners, later dyed them blue, turned to using denim, and only after Davis wrote to him, added rivets. During this period, men's jeans had the fly down the front, whereas women's jeans had the fly down the left side. When Levi Strauss & Co. patented the modern, mass-produced prototype in 1873, there were two pockets in the front and a patch pocket on the back right reinforced with copper rivets.
20th century evolution
In 1901, Levi Strauss added the back left pocket to their 501 model. This created the now familiar and industry-standard five-pocket configuration with two large pockets and small watch pocket in front with two pockets on the rear.
The popularity of "waist overalls", as jeans were sometimes called, expanded during World War II. By the 1960s, both men's and women's jeans had the zipper down the front. Historic photographs indicate that in the decades before they became a staple of fashion, jeans generally fit quite loosely, much like a pair of bib overalls without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss called its flagship product "waist overalls" rather than "jeans".
After James Dean popularized them in the movie Rebel Without a Cause, wearing jeans became a symbol of youth rebellion during the 1950s. During the 1960s, the wearing of jeans became more acceptable, and by the 1970s it had become general fashion in the United States for casual wear. In Japan in 1977, a professor of Osaka University Philip Karl Pehda chastised a female student wearing jeans in the classroom. Then he was protested by the students, and a controversy arose in the country.
Examples of intentional denim distressing strictly to make them more fashionable can be seen as early as 1935 in Vogue's June issue. Michael Belluomo, editor of Sportswear International Magazine, Oct/Nov 1987, p. 45, wrote that in 1965, Limbo, a boutique in the New York East Village, was "the first retailer to wash a new pair of jeans to get a used, worn effect, and the idea became a hit." He continued, "[Limbo] hired East Village artists to embellish the jeans with patches, decals, and other touches, and sold them for $200." In the early 1980s the denim industry introduced the stone-washing technique developed by GWG also known as "Great Western Garment Co." Donald Freeland of Edmonton, Alberta, pioneered the method, which helped to bring denim to a larger and more versatile market. Acceptance of jeans continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Originally a utilitarian garment, jeans became a common fashion choice in the second half of the 20th century.
Levi' 501s are featured prominently in the chapter on trousers in the 1987 book A Gentleman's Wardrobe: Classic Clothes and the Modern Man by British fashion journalist Paul Keers.
21st century development
In 2001, Japanese fashion designer Chuck Roaste secured a United States utility patent for a reversible jeans construction concept he had been developing since 1998. Produced under the Chuck Roaste label, the design incorporated functional, fully reversible construction elements, including pockets, fly, seams, fasteners, and other structural details that enabled the garments to be worn inside out.
Manufacturing processes
Dyeing
thumb|Chemical structure of [[indigo dye, the blue of blue jeans]]
Traditionally, jeans were dyed to a blue color using natural indigo dye. Most denim is now dyed using synthetic indigo. Approximately 20 thousand tons of indigo are produced annually for this purpose, though only a few grams of the dye are required for each pair. For other colors of denim other dyes must be used. Currently, jeans are produced in any color that can be achieved with cotton.
For more information on dyeing, refer to denim and the discussion there of using pigment dyes.
Pre-shrinking
thumb|left|Crowd of people wearing a variety of jean styles, including [[carpenter jeans, bootcut jeans, drainpipe jeans and lowrise jeans (Rome, 2008)]]
In 1962, Levi Strauss introduced their own pre-shrunk jeans (Lee and Wrangler jeans had already long been pre-shrunk); these did not shrink further after purchase, allowing the consumer to purchase a correctly fitting size. Pre-shrink is common in jeans nowadays. These jeans were known as the 505 regular fit jeans. The 505s are almost identical to the 501s with the exception of the button-fly. The Levi's Corporation also introduced a slim boot-cut fit known as 517 and 527. The difference between the two is that the 517s sit at the waist line and the 527s sit below the waist line. Later, Levi's would develop other styles and fits such as the loose, slim, comfort, relaxed, skinny, and a regular fit with a tapered leg.
Used and distressed looks
thumb|upright|[[Ronald Reagan wearing stonewash denim associated with Western clothing, 1970s]]
A significant amount of the aesthetic treatment of jeans may occur after the denim has been cut and sewn into the final garment. Many denim articles are washed to make them softer and to reduce or minimize shrinkage even beyond what sanforization prevents. Significantly washed denim can resemble dry denim which has faded naturally over extended use. Such distressing may be supplemented by chemical treatments or physical techniques such as stone washing.
The used or "acid wash" look is created by means of abrading the jeans or treating them with chemicals, such as acryl resin, phenol, a hypochlorite, potassium permanganate, caustic soda, acids etc.
Ripping or distressing of jeans, though also arising naturally as a result of wear and tear, is sometimes deliberately performed by suppliers—with distressed clothing sometimes selling for more than a nondistressed pair. For example, Pucci sold "embellished mid-rise boyfriend jeans" for £600 (US$860).
Changes in appearance due to use
Over time dry denim will fade, which is considered fashionable in some circumstances. During the process of wear, fading will usually occur on those parts of the article that receive the most stress. On a pair of jeans, this includes the upper thighs, the ankles, and the areas behind the knees. Patterns of fading in jeans caused by prolonged periods of wear include:
- honeycombs – meshes of faded line-segments that form behind the knees
- whiskers – faded streaks that form radially from the crotch area
- stacks – irregular bands of fading above the ankle caused by accordioning of the fabric due to contact with the foot or shoe
<gallery mode=packed heights=160>
File:Denim Fibers.jpg|Denim fibers from an old pair of jeans through a microscope
File:Full Count Denim Fade.jpg|alt=|Natural fading on a worn pair of selvedge jeans. Such patterns are sometimes referred to as 'whiskers' or 'honeycombs'.
</gallery>
Distressed jeans
right|thumb|upright|[[Punk rock spearheads the Ramones wearing distressed jeans.]]
thumb|upright|right|Ripped jeans were worn by singer Leigh Jones in this promotional photo.
Distressed denim emerged from the cultural punk movement in the 1970s. However, it was at the beginning of the 1970s that Iggy Pop from The Stooges that initially introduced the concept of ripped jeans as clothing on to the stage. It was after that the punk band The Ramones codified the look in tight fitting jeans and made it part of their personal uniform. This informed the punk movement as a whole and became part of punk’s fashion. Whilst some punks may have tore apart consumer goods as an expression of their anger towards capitalism and corporate greed, the vast majority used it as a 'poor' aesthetic and a anti-fashion type of fashion statement, which fitted in with the do-it-yourself ethic and punk's non-conformity. According to the Please Kill Me website, “Rips signaled something very important: the fact that wearer didn’t care at all about opinions public, personal or sartorial. Invisible scars were made obvious in the outer cloth”.
In the 1980s, clothes manufacturers gentrified the notion by selling clothes with safety pins already in them, so the original meaning of punk was lost. Denim became a key target of this anti-fashion deconstruction, with both men and women donning torn pants and jackets, accessorized with safety pins and slogans. The original trend became popular again in the 1990s with the emergence of grunge fashion. The grunge youth wore loose-fitting ripped jeans, flannel shirts or woolen Pendletons layered over T-shirts. Their anti-conformist approach to fashion led to the popularization of the casual chic look, a trend which continued into the 2000s.
Environmental and humanitarian impact
A typical pair of blue jeans uses of water during its life cycle. This includes the water to irrigate the cotton crop, manufacture the jeans, and the numerous washes by the consumer. During production, the typical amount for washing with traditional Pullman machines reaches 90 litres per jeans, which can be reduced to about 27 litres using modern frontloaders. Novel washing processes such as Droptima can reduce that to 6 litres fresh water plus 4 litres used water.
The production of jeans with a "used look" can be more environmentally damaging than regular jeans, depending on how the waste compounds are processed. Sandblasting and treating with sandpaper has the risk of causing silicosis to the workers, and in Turkey, more than 5,000 textile workers have been stricken with this disease, and 46 people are known to have died. Some companies have announced they are banning the use of sandblasting.
Care and wear
Despite most jeans being "pre-shrunk", they are still sensitive to slight further shrinkage and loss of color from being washed. The Levi Strauss company recommends avoiding washing jeans as much as possible. These and other suggestions to avoid washing jeans where possible have encountered criticism. Cory Warren, editor of LS&Co. Unzipped, clarifies in a response to such a criticism: