InterestingFacts: Blue Jeans Were Initially Called "Waist Overalls"

Five pair of jeans being hung up to dry.
Credit: Ricardo Gomez Angel/ Unsplash

Blue Jeans Were Initially Called “Waist Overalls”

When businessman Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davies received their patent for denim pants with metal rivets at the stress points to make them more durable on May 20, 1873, they marketed the trousers as “waist overalls,” intended for miners and other workers. The utilitarian pants underwent their first marketing shift in 1890, when the company introduced Levi’s 501 waist overalls made from blue denim, a move to widen their appeal in advance of the patent’s imminent expiration. (Why Levi’s chose the number 501 is unclear; many of the company’s records were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.)
This marked the start of a shift in blue denim’s fashionability. In the following decades, the pants began to grace the silver screen, worn by movie stars such as Marlon Brando (in 1953’s The Wild One) and James Dean (in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause). As the product garnered mainstream attention, the focus of marketing campaigns transitioned away from the working man to a wider audience interested in everyday fashion. By 1960, the pants became known as  “blue jeans” — a term that originally referred to a type of twilled cloth from Genoa, Italy — replacing the “overalls” designation for good.
Note:  The above comes directly from their website.  Click here to read more.

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