Kids Fashion Point

Jeans are a modern fashion symbol of note but they’ve been around for centuries. The word ‘Jeans’ comes from the French phrase meaning ‘blue of Genoa’, as jeans were sold through the harbor in Genoa as early as the 17th century, particularly for the Genomic Navy who needed the multi-purpose jeans for work on ships. The demon material from which jeans are made is woven from cotton which is crisscrossed in double layers and which makes the material very durable and caused it to quickly become the first choice for heavy duty workers.

In the Second World War jeans were used widely by factory workers. Initially, women’s jeans had a zipper down the right side, and this tradition only changed at the time of the women’s movement for liberation in the sixties when all jeans were standardized to have the zipper at the front. Jeans first started becoming fashionable in the fifties when youngsters used them as a form of rebellion. Ironically, at the time jeans were a symbol of non-conformity, yet at present everyone owns at least one pair.

Levi Strauss started producing jeans after he discovered that inserting copper rivets into the parts of the pants that receive the most strain could stop tearing, which made his jeans particularly useful as work wear. It was in the seventies, after Strauss’ death that jeans only really became popular as fashion items, which was   when the stonewashing process made them more attractive for wearers. Clearly jeans have a much longer history as pants for work wear than fashion, and while they’ve been somewhat replaced in the heavy duty work arena by overalls, jeans are still widely used for work purposes. However, it’s the fashion industry that has really popularized jeans throughout the world.