American blue jeans are ubiquitous

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Spring is the time of year when people start wearing jeans again. Sometimes we put on our denim trousers to do rough spring time work like planting annuals or cleaning the garage.

Upscale jeans can also be appropriate for a fashionable dinner on the veranda. People wear expensive designer jeans with jackets for casual Friday attire in upscale offices. Meanwhile, the window washers outside on the ledge also wear pants of the same tough fabric. A grandfather wears blue jeans on Saturday morning when he takes his two year old grandson out for a walk in his own little bib overalls, both made from the same fabric. Probably no article of clothing is more common around the world than the quintessentially American blue jean trousers.

Sailors’ trousers

Even though jeans come in many colors, traditionally they are blue and made from woven cotton fabric. The word itself finds its etymology in the French phrase bleu de Genes, meaning the blue of Genoa. The French call Genoa, Italy and the people who live there Genes and the name was logically extended to apply to the tough working pants that the Genoese sailors wore. It is thought that these pants dated to the time of Christopher Columbus. Some historians contend that the sails on Columbus’s ships were sewn from a jean like cotton fabric.

The Genoese sailors dragged their work clothes in a mesh bag behind the ship to launder them and then dried their washed clothing by hanging them from the rigging. This early laundering method bleached the indigo blue out of the fabric and turned the garments white. Eventually white uniforms became customary for both deck hands and officers in the many of the world’s navies.

The U.S. Navy began issuing work clothes made from denim for the seaman in the late 18th century. Blue jeans at that time were known as dungarees a word that derives from the Hindi term for rough cotton cloth. By the early 19th century, the accepted labor or working uniform for sailors included dungarees trousers and light blue, stenciled cambric work shirts. Even though the young people of the hippy generation thought that bell bottom jeans were avant garde, in fact, bell bottom jeans were designed for sailors more than a century earlier. The wide legs allowed the pants to be rolled up for swabbing decks and also permitted easy exit if a sailor went overboard.

Western jeans

Blue jeans are often connected with the hard work of the American West including mining, farming, and cattle ranching. Bavarian born businessman, Levi Strauss, saw that the early miners in the California gold fields needed durable pants for their work uniforms. He and his partner, Jacob Davis, received a US patent on riveted pocket jeans. The rivets were a sign to the miners that these pants were industrial grade. Even today, people in the Netherlands call American style blue jeans spijkerbroek or nail trousers, referring to the copper rivets on the garments.

During World War II jeans became increasingly popular as casual wear. At that time men’s jeans had the zipper down the front and women’s jeans had a zipper in the back. By the 1960’s unisex jeans appeared with the zipper in front for both genders.

Fashion statement

It was also at this time that young actors like Marlin Brando and James Dean popularized jeans as a garment that symbolizes the rebellion of youth. In the movie Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean set the image of the modern teenager in his tight fitting blue jeans, white T-shirt, and leather jacket. During the 1960’s and 1970’s blue jeans became more mainstream and acceptable for both work and casual wear. Designer jeans were introduced in the late 1970’s. In 1980 Calvin Klein made headlines with his company’s controversial jean advertisement featuring fifteen year old Brooke Shields and the tag line, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin Klein jeans.”

Today, jeans have been rediscovered by the hip hop culture. The oversized jeans worn without a belt are said to have originated from common prison work clothing. The large size and drooping fit reflect prison practice of taking belts away from convicts during incarceration for safety reasons. Whatever the latest reincarnation of the blue jean, this simple garment still occupies an important place in any wardrobe. The average American owns six pairs of jeans and the total market at retail for blue jeans in the US exceeds $15 billion each year.

American icon

Blue jeans are an American export that has been carried around the world. They are a fashion statement that suggests the rugged individualism of the American West and the individualism of the cowboys and miners who worked the frontier. The names for jeans in other countries reflect this association. In Spain, blue jeans are called vaqueros or tejanos, literally meaning cowboys or Texans. In China they are called niuzaiko or cowboy pants. In Bulgaria, jeans are called by a word that is translated into English as donkey or burro, recalling the garment’s first use by miners.

Cotton blue jean trousers have found their way from humble beginnings as work clothes for sailors to the mines and ranches of the American West. Today, these garments stretch from rugged work clothes to hip hop culture to high fashion wear. Jeans owe their longevity to the utility and style that these garments have provided to generations of American consumers.

Bob Gariano is President of RGA, a Lake Forest executive search firm that recruits senior executives and board members for public and private companies. Bob can be reached at rgariano@robertgariano.com