Why do we love our blue jeans so much? It's not so hard to understand. Jeans are comfortable, they last a long time, they're not terribly expensive, and they are fashionable. You can wear them for casual get togethers or dress up affairs, for lounging around watching TV, or for working at the office or in the garden. You can even wear them for your next guest appearance on the Jay Leno show. As the expression goes, you can live in your jeans.

Who Originally Created Jeans?

There is no one person who can be credited as the "inventor" of jeans. It may be hard to believe, but the distinctive pants we now know as "jeans" have evolved over a long period of time - over 400 years.

Traditional jeans are made of a woven cotton fabric called denim. Denim is a rugged cotton twill material with a distinctive diagonal weave that makes it very tough and very versatile.

The name "dungaree" comes from Dongarii Fort, an area on the outskirts of the Indian city of Bombay, where the material was produced and sold. It was usually dyed with blue indigo dye creating the distinctive blue colour that exists to this day. This distinctive dungaree cloth was first used by sailors on Portuguese sailing ships. They wore it in their travels around the world and introduced it to Europe.

By the mid 1600s a similar cloth was being woven in France near the city of Nimes. This popular fabric was called "serge de Nimes." The name was shortened to "de Nimes" which was eventually pronounced "denim." That is how we got the name we use today.

The term "jeans" came about because denim trousers were manufactured in the Italian port of Genoa, which is pronounced "Genes" in French. The durable pants were first used by sailors in the Genoese navy. Like teenagers of today, these sailors practically lived in their clothes, which made the denim fabric ideal. The sailors could wear the denim either wet or dry, and it is easy to roll the legs up for swabbing the deck. They could also wash the 'jeans' by putting them in a large net, and dragging them behind the ship.

Hey! What could be more convenient than that?