DENIM History & Facts

HISTORY

2008 - ONVIS BRING DENIM BACK TO THE ROOTS

ONVIS is a project which tells true stories. You love your denim, and your real life story your denim brings along. We are taking you back into the past to repropose the origins of jeans in the contemporary context, and so we want you to live your jeans from day one. Originally, denim was not a fashion product, but a functional, hand-crafted object. Its main features were materials' quality, resistance, attention to details.

2000 - REINVENTING DENIM

The products need to be reinvented from time to time and jeans has been back on designers catwalks. It is now released of all social and creative restrictions, and has overtook almost any level of price. It can also be found in different context, such as cushions, bed spreads and furniture coverings.

1990's - RECESSION

Denim is never completely out of style, but it certainly goes out of fashion from time to time. In the 90's the youth market is not particularly interested in traditional jeans styles, mainly because they are represented by their parents' generation. The new generation of rebellious youth turn to other fabrics and other styles of pants, such as khakis, chinos, combat and carpenters and branded sportswear pants.
They still wear denim, but only in new finishes, cuts, shapes or styles. Besides that, they love to discover markets, secondhand and thrift shops, and look for aged, authentic vintage jeans, not conventional jeans stores.

1980's - DESIGNER JEANS

Famous designers start making their own styles, with their own labels, and jeans became high fashion clothing. Sales increase strongly.

1960-70's - HIPPIES AND THE COLD WAR

Different styles of jeans are made to match the 60's fashion: embroidered, painted, psychedelic and more. In many non - western countries, jeans become a symbol of ' western decadence' and are very hard to get.

1950's: REBELS

Denim become popular with young people. It is the symbol of the teenage rebel in tv programmes and movies (one above all: James Dean's
movie "Rebel without a cause", 1955). Some schools in the usa banned students from wearing denim.

1940's - WAR

Fewer jeans are made during the time of world war 2, but sometimes american soldiers wear them when off duty, and so they introduce denim to the world. After the war, new rival companies begin to be competitive for a share of the international market.

19th CENTURY: THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH

Gold miners want strong, rubust clothes. They must be very resistant in extreme conditions and not tear easily. In 1853, Leob strauss starts a wholesale business, supplying clothes. Strauss later will change his name from Leob to Levi. In 1872, Jacob Davis has the idea of using metal rivets (fasteners) to hold the pockets and the jeans together so that they wouldn't tear. He writes to Levi Strauss to offer a deal, asking if he would pay for the patent. Strauss accepts.

18th CENTURY

In the eighteenth century as trade, slave labour and cotton plantations increase. Workers wear jean cloth because the material is very
strong and it does not wear out easily.

TERMINOLOGY

where do the names "denim" and "jeans" come from?

The word jeans comes from a kind of material that was made in europe. The material, called jean, was named after sailors from Genoa in italy,
because they wore clothes made from it. the word 'denim' probably came from the name of a french material, serge de nimes: Serge (a kind of material) from Nimes (a town in france).

What is SELVAGE?

In a woven fabric, "selvage" or "selvedge" (from self-edge) is the uncut edge of the fabric which is on the right- and left-hand edges as it comes out of the loom. As such it is 'finished' and will not fray because the weft threads double back on themselves. Selvage denim (also called selvedge denim) is a type of denim which forms a clean natural edge that does not unravel. It is commonly presented in the unwashed or raw state. Typically, the selvage edges will be located along the outseam of the pants, making it visible when cuffs are worn. Although selvage denim is not completely synonymous with unwashed denim, the presence of selvage typically implies that the denim used is a higher quality.

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