Actually, the birthday of jeans is a rather arbitrary date. May 20, 1873 is taken as the starting point, when manufacturer Levi Strauss and his cutter Jacob Davis received a patent for the use of rivets in sewing pants. But this was only one step in the development of jeans: the cut, color, and material standard of the "classic" blue jeans were created gradually. However, there are not many other exact dates in the prehistory of jeans - no one assumed that ordinary workwear would become a world hit, and the process of creating "trousers of the 20th century" was not carefully documented.
The main reason for the appearance of jeans was... gold. In 1849, deposits of this metal were discovered in California, and thousands of gold prospectors flooded to the American West. This wave of migration also brought with it a small merchant, Levi Strauss. He was one of the first to realize that real fortunes are made not by those who toil in the mines, but by those who trade with the gold prospectors. In 1853, Strauss began to sew and sell cheap and durable work pants, which naturally sold like hot cakes. Thus, the prototype of the legendary jeans appeared.
Those rough trousers that Levi Strauss initially produced bore little resemblance to what we wear today. They were sewn from canvas and were brown. But then the novice manufacturer switched to another fabric - "serge de Nîmes" from the French city of Nîmes (hence the English name of the fabric "denim"), dyed indigo, which became the classic color. Europe once again contributed to Strauss's success when in 1878 artificial indigo dye, cheaper than natural, was invented in Germany. The cut of jeans gradually took shape: the classic five-pocket model appeared - two large front pockets, two back pockets, and a small "watch" pocket; a double seam was developed; finally, those famous patented rivets that reinforced pockets were invented. The durable pants won the hearts not only of gold prospectors, but also, for example, of cowboys - this clothing proved surprisingly suitable for horse riding and Texas rodeo. Levi Strauss's success led to other manufacturers starting to make jeans. But until the 1930s, jeans remained ordinary workwear - comfortable, durable, but not fashionable at all.
Hollywood gave the "Levi's pants" cult status. After the "dream factory" accustomed America to cowboy films, jeans became firmly associated with heroes galloping at full speed in wide-brimmed hats and with a Colt on their belt. But the main success came to jeans only after World War II, when, following Elvis, the rock 'n' roll generation dressed in blue pants. It was then that manufacturers of cowboy trousers turned into multi-millionaires. And it was then that the era of "classic jeans" ended: as soon as they became the height of fashion, fashion designers took over them. Jeans appeared in a wide variety of colors, special women's models (what would the stern heroes of cowboy films say if they saw ladies' denim pants with frills and embroidery?!), "boiled," "washed," "dirty," ripped, flared jeans, and denim shorts, "exclusive models" worth tens of thousands of dollars, jeans from leading Parisian fashion houses, and any other styles that might come to the mind of a haute couture original.
In the 90s, jeans were even predicted to finally go out of fashion - they said that following the era of rock music, the youth uniform of the 60s should also fade into oblivion. However, apparently, in fashion everything is changeable except jeans. No matter how tailors mocked these trousers, no matter how the preferences of young people changed, the world has worn, wears, and will wear jeans. And patent 139121, issued to Strauss and Davis for rivets, will mark more than one anniversary.