Jeans have been around for a long time. Initially, the term for them was waist overalls. The idea of jeans was simple: a sturdy pair of trousers that could be worn for hard labor or leisure. Levi Strauss created the iconic denim jeans we know today in 1873.
The story of jeans begins in Genoa, Italy, where the orange-colored overalls for workers were first made and thought to have first been worn. By the early 1900s, American cowboys, miners and railroad workers were wearing specially designed denim blue overalls and pants made from cotton drilled.
By the 1920s, movie stars like Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich were seen wearing jeans, swaying the bad-boy look of the moment. This also began to move the ‘blue-collar’ look away from the lower classes and towards the more affluent sectors of society.
The 1950s saw a decline in the socio-economic connotations of denim, jeans became a more socially acceptable form of clothing, and started to be worn by the wealthy, rather than the working class. During this period, jeans had started to fit alongside the white T-shirt of the era as everyday comfort wear. However, jeans that were from workwear still retained a sense of lower class connotation.
In the 1960s, jeans reached a new level of popularity. Marlon Brando and James Dean, two popular movie stars of the era, helped popularize jeans with their work and the various images they represented. They provided a sense of rebellion and individualism to their followers, making jeans part of a powerful, youth-friendly image. This image create a counterculture and inspired young people to push back against the expectations of the older generations.
This continued into the 1970s when jeans, especially denim, began to be seen as a symbol of liberation. Blue jeans became a fashion staple, especially with the rise of punk culture and its idea of self-expression.
The 1980s saw jeans become the preferred day to night and casual to formal type of clothing. This idea was further perpetuated with the emergence of trended denim. High-end fashion brands such as Chanel and Dior began to design and produce their own luxury jeans, taking the everyday look of jeans to a higher level.
The 1990s then saw a surge in the popularity of distressed jeans, which became known as jorts or jean shorts, and mom jeans, which were higher rise than the traditional jeans of the era. This decade was a time that saw the introduction of multiple washes of jeans – light wash, dark wash, acid wash and destructed jeans.
Today jeans are the most versatile and popular item of clothing around the world. They come in all shapes, sizes, fabrics and colors- and the range is constantly expanding. Through its journey with fashion, jeans have grown from an item of workwear to one of the most enduring fashion staples of modern times.
