The brand Levi’s has been around for quite a while now. It was founded in May 1853 when German immigrant Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. These jeans or what you would call “overalls” were specifically made for all laborers, like miners, cowboys, ranchers, and lumbermen. But if notice nowadays everyone wears these jeans, no matter your race or ethnicity or if you are going to use them for work or not. For example, I work at Forever 21 and I have noticed that there are a lot of denim overalls coming in and a lot women and teenagers are trying them on, but these aren’t the pair of jeans that they would call “overalls” back then. These are “a garment consisting of trousers with a front flap over the chest held up by straps over the shoulders, made of sturdy material and worn especially as casual or working clothes”(Google Def.).
So overtime you can really see how the variety of people have used these overalls and jeans in many different ways. Back then you would not go into the store and look for your own jeans or overalls, you actually had to ask for them. They used the word “overalls” instead of jeans until the 1905 when the baby boomers came along. From my own experience the first time I went into the Levi’s store in San Francisco I was overwhelmed I did not know where to look there is a whole lot of jeans in this store. After looking for a while I tried a couple of pairs on and they are really comfortable and the material of these jeans do not look cheap and they look like they will last you quite a while.
One thing that Lynn Downey states in her article is that these “overalls” were made with strong material so they wouldn’t tear on any of the workers. These “overalls” actually helped two boys when their train had broken down. There were no replacement parts so that the heavily laden cars could be safely unloaded. So one of the engineer removed his Levi's jeans, soaked them in a water tank, twisted them into a rope, and used the pants to link the tender car and the engine. After this situation these jeans became even more popular for how strong the material is and they also realized that they are worth the money. It wasn’t until the early days of the twentieth century, Levi Strauss & Co. expanded its advertising beyond newspapers. Then in the 1920s, they sponsored rodeos in California, then made billboards and made their way to ads.
Click the link below to watch ad
Works Cited:
Downey, Lynn. "Arizona Historical Society." MY ADVENTURES WITH DENIM: Glimpses into Arizona's Fashion History from the Levi, www.jstor.org/stable/24459197?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. Accessed 3 Mar. 2018.
Comments
Post a Comment