When tailor Jacob Davis made the world’s first pair of jeans in 1870, he had no idea they would become the most popular piece of clothing of all time. A woman came into his shop in Reno, Nevada, and asked Davis to make a sturdy pair of pants for her husband to wear to work. She was tired of fixing rips and tears in his canvas pants.
Up for the challenge, Davis looked at what he had on hand. He had some copper rivets left over from attaching straps to horse blankets. Davis used the rivets to reinforce the pants’ points of stress, such as the corners of the pockets and below the fly. He sold 200 more pairs over the next 18 months, including some made of the tough fabric denim. Knowing he was onto something, Davis partnered with a businessman whose name is now synonymous with jeans: Levi Strauss.
Denim and jean used to be considered different fabrics. Denim was more expensive and more durable, making it popular among hard laborers. Jean fabric was often thinner and more suitable for office work or recreational wear. But by the 1960s, young people started wearing denim pants. This crowd tended to call their pants “jeans,” and the name stuck.
Today, denim jeans can be found in hundreds of colors, fits, and styles. Find out more about the world’s obsession with jeans with our charts and graphs.