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Most people own a pair of denim jeans. Denim jeans are a fashion item everywhere. You can buy a pair of cheap jeans in a supermarket. You can also spend a lot of money on an expensive pair of designer jeans. However, not many people know about the history of jeans and where they come from.

Farm labourers in Europe wore denim trousers over 300 years ago in the 1700s. In America, slaves working on the cotton plantations in the southern states also wore denim. Denim work clothes were comfortable and hard-wearing. Denim was also very cheap.

Two men stand out for starting the global fashion industry for denim. The first, a businessman called Levi Strauss, travelled to San Francisco, USA from Germany in 1853. Strauss started a business selling hard-wearing clothes for men arriving in San Francisco looking for gold and riches during the Californian Gold Rush. One day, a tailor called Jacob Davis added metal fasteners to a client’s denim trousers to make them more durable. Davis realised that his idea was a good one. He worried about how to stop others from copying his very good idea.  Davis asked Strauss to join him to create and patent the world’s first pair of denim jeans. And because of their patent, the new company Levi Strauss and Co, remained the only company allowed to make clothing with rivets until the patent expired in 1890.