Did You Know?

Jeans were invented by Levi Strauss in the 1850s, a sailmaker who had travelled to America in search of gold. He took with him some hard wearing cloth to sell as wagon covers and tent material. When the gold prospectors complained that their trousers were falling apart, Strauss used the cloth to make the first jeans. As the cloth came from Nimes in France, it became known as denim (de Nimes).