SEW MUCH HISTORY - The History of Denim
The Fabric Phenomenon by Birgit lohmann18th century
in the eighteenth century as trade, slave labour, and cotton plantations increased, workers wore jean cloth because the material was very strong and it did not wear out easily.
19th century
During the California gold rush the gold miners wanted clothes that were strong and did not tear easily. In 1853, Leob Strauss started a wholesale business, supplying clothes. Strauss later changed his name from Leob to Levi.
1940's
Although fewer jeans were made during the time of World War II they were introduced to the world by American soldiers, who wore them when they were off duty. After the war, rival companies, like Wrangler and Lee, began to compete with Levi for a share of the huge international market.
1950's
Young rebels ìn the 1950's made denim popular with young people. It became the symbol of the teenage rebel in T.V. programmes and movies (James Dean in the 1955 movie ‘Rebel Without a Cause’). Some schools in the U.S.A. banned students from wearing denim.
1960-70's
Hippies and the Cold War had a direct influence on different styles of jeans. 60's fashions created embroidered jeans, painted jeans, psychedelic jeans...in many non-western countries, jeans became a symbol of western decadence and were very hard to get.
1980's
Designer jeans evolved in the 1980's. Jeans became high fashion clothing when famous designers started making their own styles of jeans, with their own labels on them. Sales of jeans went up and up.
1990's
Although denim is never completely out of style, it certainly goes out of 'fashion' from time to time. In the 90’s the youth market lost interest in 501s and other traditional jeans styles, mainly because their parents: the' generation born in blue' were still busy squeezing their aging bodies into them. Since no teenager would be caught dead in anything their parents are wearing, this generation of rebellious youth turned to other fabrics and other styles of casual pants, such as khakis, chinos, combat and carpenters and branded sportswear pants.
They still wore denim, but it had to be in different finishes, new cuts, shapes, styles, or in the form of aged, authentic, vintage jeans, discovered in markets, secondhand and thrift shops, not conventional jeans stores.
2000: Reinventing Denim
Jeans are back on designer catwalks at Chanel, Dior, Chloe and Versace and the single most potent symbol of fashion, summer '99--Tom Ford's feathered, beaded, beat-up, torn-knee Gucci blue jeans, seen globally, sold out instantaneously at $3715 a pop and then the shining image of Helmut Lang's silver-sprayed pants, striding out beyond our conception of basic utility. Freed of all social and creative restrictions, Denim is assuming any number of disguises and contexts to be worn in and has broken through almost any limitation on price. It can also be found in home collections, appearing in cushions, bed spreads and furniture-coverings.
Denim and Jeans - where do the names come from?
Jeans comes from a European cloth called jean. It was originally named after sailors from Genoa in Italy, because they wore clothes made from it.
- Denim came from the name of a French cloth called ‘Serge de Nimes’:
- Serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in France).
Traditional Denim is a durable twill-woven cotton fabric with coloured (usually blue) warp and white filling threads.
Rivets
A big problem with the miners' clothes were the pockets, which easily tore away from the jeans. Jacob Davis had the idea of using metal rivets (fasteners) to hold the pockets and the jeans together so that they wouldn't tear. Davis wanted to patent his idea, but he didn't have enough money, so in 1872, he wrote to Levi Strauss and offered Strauss a deal if Strauss would pay for the patent. Strauss accepted.
Label
In 1886 Levi sewed a leather label on their jeans. The label was printed with a picture of a pair of jeans being pulled between two horses.
Who started to prewash them?
Jack Spence for Lee.
Who started with stone-wash?
Francois Girbaud.
What stones where used?
First pea gravel, then pomice, because they float around with the jeans, instead of lying in the bottom of the water; Turkish stones are preferred for their porosity and cleanliness or stones from Sicily, but their supply is limited.
Who started sandblasting?
Different brands used it in 1988 in Italy.
Denim is no longer a cotton only product.
Denims come with either polyamide, lycra, polypropylene or with polyester and a special bonding with a 100% nylon net for a more active look. Two-way stretch fabrics and special coatings or rubberised effects continue to be a strong trend. Lighter, softer denims in dress and shirting weights have been introduced and various natural fibres, such as linen, hemp or wool and for the luxe looks even silk and cashmere are turning up in new denims to give them different aesthetics.
Why is denim blue?
Denim is unique in its singular connection with one colour. The warp yarn is traditionally dyed with the blue pigment obtained from indigo dye. Until the introduction of synthetic dyes, at the end of the 19th century, indigo was the most significant natural dye known to mankind. Linked with practical fabrics and work clothing, the durability of indigo as a colour and its darkness of tone made it a good choice, when frequent washing was not possible. In 1870 BASF, in Germany, original suppliers of natural indigo had started the search for a synthetic substitute. In 1894 the process was perfected.
This lesson on denim has been partially elaborated using extracts from - 'Deconstructing Denim' by Ros Hibbert, published in 'Textile View' Spring 2000 and - 'The history of jeans' see www.britannica.com.
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