JEANS, FABRIC: CANDIANI # SK6262

History of the Selvedge Jean

The birth of the jean, is a well-documented story which started with a tailor who had an idea to strengthen his clients garments at their pocket edges. These clients being miners who went down silver mines. Many don’t realise early miners were just wearing basic tailored trousers and pants down the silver mines in California in the 1870s period. Most of these garments were not even that heavy in weight compared to modern workwear of today. 8 or 10 oz was the maximum weight that was produced, a shirting weight we would consider today. Its for this very reason not many early examples remain.

During this period of time many tailors and dry good shops popped up in this towns servicing these miners, selling everything from equipment and clothing for the miners. Early workwear has its roots in tailoring, as it was tailors who made garments for the miners.

Jacob Davis was a tailor who came up with the idea of riveting overalls at their stress points and history was made when Levi Strauss helped pay for the patent.

May 20th, 1873 is the patent date for the rivet, but riveted jeans where in circulation many months or even a year before the patent came into effect. The 1st jeans were made of natural duck canvas, not indigo twilled fabric in this period.

The shape of the back pocket of the 1873 pant is the shape of the spade tool the miners worked with, and the small coin pocket was called a Match Pocket, for the miners matches. This jean is heavily tailored, with a shaped curved waistband, mini SPI’s (stitch per inches) up to 16 and even 18 in some places. Modern garments are now made with 6 or 9 as standard. This jean had only one back pocket, the yoke doesn’t exist yet, but a cinch buckle helped with the fit. The knee area has extra fabric on the knee section for extra protection for the miner. It is important to know that these garments were overalls, and were not meant to be made to fit well, they were meant to be worn loose. Most believe the match pocket was most likely a Jacob Davis invention.

There is a sense of pure refinement of this early style from the shape of the fly, to areas where the seams are run and felled with a single needle method – with one row of stitching on the presentation side, and two rows of stitching on the underside. This jean was made in a time before mass production, before even a chainstitch stitch was even considered. Chainstitch is mostly used on areas where the seams need to flex, you normally find it on back rise stitches, waistbands and side seams. This early garment would also been made with 100% cotton thread making it more vulnerable to coming apart and wearing away more faster.

Levis had exclusivity of riveting jeans for a short period of time in history – so other workwear and denim brands had to came up with other ingenious methods to strengthen their own garments in points of stress. This early period in denim history is far more fascinating, as so many brands were being creative on their construction methods before everything was standardized after WW1.