Corona Daily 323: Blue Jeans

Four years ago, travelling in the Moscow metro, I noticed something defying probability. The compartment had about twenty Russians, old and young, men and women, and each of them was wearing blue jeans. Different shades of blue, but blue jeans nonetheless. I, a foreigner, was in blue jeans as well. This was a place where thirty years before, blue jeans were a smuggled product, available only on the black market. More than Marx and Lenin, blue jeans have brought more equality in the world. From Bill Gates to a homeless man, everyone wears denim. Torn garments are usually associated with beggars, but torn jeans can be a fashion product.

In the last six months, I have not touched my jeans. Nor have I seen anyone wearing them. Before discussing the pandemic’s impact on blue jeans, a few words on their history.

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Jeans are almost 150 years old. The pants made from cotton were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873. Levi Strauss, now a recognizable name, went from Germany to New York. He was a trader of cotton cloth. Jacob Davis, a tailor, was his customer. Jacob specialized in making utility items such as blankets, wagon covers, and tents. Customers, particularly miners, needed sturdy clothes that could withstand rough conditions.

The trousers Jacob made were named after Genoa in Italy, a place where cotton corduroy called jean (or jeane) was manufactured. Genoa exported that cloth across Europe. In the French city of Nimes, French weavers tried to create an identical product, but couldn’t. The fabric they produced became known as de Nimes (from Nimes), better known now as denim.

Jacob wanted to patent the product, but had no money. He discussed the idea with Levi Strauss who liked it. The two men jointly received a US patent for Jeans.

They used an organic dye with a distinctive blue called Indigo. It was produced from a plant indigofera tinctoria native to India, source of the dye’s name. By the end of the nineteenth century, a synthetic dye was produced, but it retained the natural indigo colour.

In the USA, the bestselling brands were those that the buyers considered cool. In the 1920s and 1930s Jeans and Hollywood gained popularity in tandem. Jeans were positioned as the uniform of the lone cowboy, synonymous with the romance and promise of the American West. In the 1950s, jeans became a symbol of youth rebellion, when James Dean wore them in his super-popular movie Rebel without a cause. Because of their association with youth protest, jeans were briefly banned in schools, theatres and restaurants.

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After the end of the cold war in 1990, jeans became available and acceptable universally. The annual demand for jeans was in billions. Levi Strauss, Wrangler and other brands moved the production out of the USA and Europe. The labels now tell us they are made in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lesotho and other poor countries.  

Outsourcing helped the American companies to not only reduce their costs dramatically, but also to outsource moral responsibility and legal liability.

People eating pork and beef rarely know the conditions at the slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. Similarly, we the jeans-wearers seldom know the environment at the factories making jeans.

Tomorrow, I will write about the Lesotho garment factories and discuss who in the jeans supply chain has suffered the most in the pandemic.

Ravi