From Genoa to Jeans and from Nimes to Denim

I was going through my evening rituals, which amongst other things includes laying out a carefully planned set of clothes for the next work day. This saves me the hassle of clumsily fumbling through my mind in the early morning while the engine is still cold. The final selection accords to pre-planned activities for the day ahead. With this in mind I chose a denim shirt by King Gee (Australia), silk tie by Timothy Everest (Savile Row London), a pair of grey flannel trousers by Jaeger (England), for the feet, a pair of blue and white Converse All Stars (America), dark lightweight Harris Tweed jacket (England) and a leather belt by RM Williams (Australia) this is the gear you need for working at the coalface, functionality rules the way. I call it the lean-clean style, it’s casual by framework, loose and comfortable, but formalised enough with the introduction of neckwear. So I can get into action, throw off the jacket, roll the sleeves up, loosen the tie and get it done.

Each item of the collection I laid out brought together a little cultural heritage from three continents, captured in the clothing they invented, commercialised, stylised, or popularised. We can easily relate Denim to Levis and its American Wild West culture. But this fabric was adopted from another continent by early Americans who created functional hard wearing work gear. At the same time they introduced a style without the aid of catwalks and drop dead handsome models. This is how it happened, Mr Jacob Davis a tailor from Reno Nevada decided to put copper rivets on the corners of his denim trouser pockets to prevent them from ripping. Unable to cover the cost of patenting the idea he sought help from prosperous clothing distributor Mr Levi Strauss. Mr Strauss added his own style by putting the garment label on the outside rather than on the inside. Thus a new style was born. By the time this all happened, denim (originally from Nimes in France) had already been styled into bell bottom trousers and worn by Italian sailors from Genoa. These trousers had very practical applications. If a sailor went overboard he could easily slip off his trousers without his feet getting caught and thus stand a better chance of staying afloat.

The style has gone from Nimes, to Denim, from Genoa to Jeans, from France to America and travelled the world. So after you’ve read this article go and slip on your favourite jeans and experience the history.

Now we haven’t even touched on the belt, flannel trousers, jacket or shoes, well perhaps another time. How are the jeans?