Pavel Novotny

Jeans are pants, or trousers, made from denim. Mainly designed for work, they became popular among teenagers starting in the 1950s. Historic brands include Levi's and Wrangler. Today, jeans are a very popular form of casual dress around the world and come in many styles and colors, with the "blue jeans" particularly identified with the American culture, especially the American Old West. Americans spent more than $14 billion on jeans in 2004.

The jeans name comes from blu di Genoa or Bleu Genes, that literally means blue of Genoa. Jeans fabric was made in Chieri, a town near Turin (Italy), during the Renaissance and popularised around the 1500s. It was sold through the harbour of Genoa, which was the capital of an independent republic, and a naval power. The first were made for the Genoese Navy because it required all-purpose pants for its sailors that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck. These jeans would be laundered by dragging them in large mesh nets behind the ship, and the sea water would bleach them white. They were especially worn by Genoan sailors and stevedores who worked in Italy and France, and in 1860, during the Battle of Marsala, Sicily by a general named Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Italian troops.