D for Denim: How Jeans Have Become The World's Most Popular Leggings

16:16 GMT, 20 May 2021

It is almost impossible to imagine modern fashion and everyday activities without blue-coloured denim trousers but 150 years ago, Jacob W Davis (who had been born Jacob Youphes in Riga in what was then the Russian empire) discovered that by inserting rivets into weak points in the seams, he could make a particularly durable pair of trousers.

Denim itself is a sturdy type of cotton which originated in Nimes, France - denim is a contraction of "de Nimes" (from Nimes). Thus a Franco-Russian product turned into regular clothes for American cowboys and gold prospectors and are now the most popular trousers in the world. No matter, where you live - from the biggest cities to the remotest parts of the world, everyone wears jeans, and feels good about it!

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Nine-year-old Erek Hansen of Curtice, Ohio, pokes his head out of 33,088 pairs of jeans that were collected as part of a project launched by National Geographic Kids Magazine so that they could be recycled into housing insulation in Washington, on Wednesday, 12 August 2009.

© AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin

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A group of bare-breasted models wearing the latest denim produce by Gianfranco Ferré appear on the catwalk at his Spring-Summer collection in Milan Friday, 4 October 1996.

© AP Photo / Luca Bruno

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An Afghan woman chooses blue jeans and jackets in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, on 20 April 2003.

© AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo

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South Korean employee of Levi's Jeans shows the world's smallest 1cm blue jeans in Seoul, Sunday, 1 May 2005.

© AP Photo / Lee Jin-Man

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From left: Meredith Vieira, Savannah Guthrie and Jenna Bush Hager dress in "mom jeans" during a Saturday Night Live-themed Halloween episode of NBC's Today show on Friday, 31 October 2014, in New York.

© AP Photo / Charles Sykes

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British singer Rita Ora performs on stage during V Festival 2014 at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex, England, Sunday, 17 August 2014.

© AP Photo / Joel Ryan

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This picture taken on 31 October 2015 shows models showing off denim creations by Chen Wen Jeans Collection designed by Chen Wen at China Fashion Week in Beijing.

© AFP 2023 / STR

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Five boys, all wearing blue jeans and the same dark shirt, stand in front of the booking officer at the West 47th Street police station in New York, 31 July 1954.

© AP Photo / Chris Daly

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As witnessed by Dutch policemen, two Hungarian policemen wearing roller-blades as they patrol traffic in the town of Hatvan, 60km north-east of Budapest on Wednesday 25 February 1998. The roller-blades and the blue jean shorts are not yet officially part of the Hungarian police uniform.

© AP Photo / Sandor H. Szabo

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Tanja Roppel, director of the Levi Strauss Museum in Buttenheim, Germany, shows a replica of the world's oldest jeans. The original trousers were bought by the Levi Strauss Group for around $47,000 and the company made 500 replicas of them.

© AP Photo / Frank Boxler

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Hollywood star and California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, sits near a pile of jeans at the Blue Cop clothes manufacturing plant where he announced a statewide labour enforcement initiative on 29 July 2005 in the Los Angeles area community of Vernon, California.

© AFP 2023 / David McNew/Getty Images

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South Korean models pose in front of a giant pair of blue jeans in Seoul on Sunday, 1 May 2005. The Big Jean is 30m high and recorded in the Guinness book as the largest pair of blue jeans in the world.

© AP Photo / Lee Jin-Man

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Model Angie looks at a washbasin bowl in denim presented at the international sanitary and heating fair in Frankfurt on 14 March 2005.

© AP Photo / Bernd Kammere

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Jose Luis Aburto pushes unfinished sections of Guess Jeans over an unstable portion of the road on Thursday, 14 October 1999, outside of Teziutlan, Mexico, to trucks waiting to transport the parts to other factories in Mexico.

© AP Photo / Gregory Bul

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A model presents a creation for Aalto during the 2018/2019 fall/winter collection fashion show on 28 February 2018 in Paris.

© AFP 2023 / Alain Jocard

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A teenage Chinese couple in jeans sit next to a poster of an American couple wearing jeans in an advertisement on a Beijing phone booth on 13 October 1995.

© AP Photo / Mike Fiala

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From left: Models Vera Munro and Consuelo wear autumn casual fashions in London, May 1971. Vera wears a green unbleached denim jacket and jeans, and Consuelo's cream jeans and jacket are piped in orange with knee patches and pockets.

© AP Photo

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LEJE Slash Jeans with optical illusion.

© Photo : LEJE

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Model and actress Elizabeth Hurley laughs while posing with some other models for a photoshoot in New York on Thursday, 1 February 2007, as she promotes a new collection from Jordache.

© AP Photo / Seth Wenig

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