Almost everyone has jeans, and chances are you have at least a few pairs in your closet right now.

Jeans are a universal garment which can be worn for working, relaxing, and even going out with. While the bottoms have gone from resembling bells to becoming very skinny, overall the classic blue jean has definitely stood the test of time and is one of the most common forms of clothing worn to this day.

Many times when we think of jeans, we think Levi’s, and thus often attribute Levi Strauss & Co. as the one’s who invented the blue jean. While the denim itself was not invented by Levi, the style of the jean pant was. Levi Strauss and a tailor named Jacob Davis created the riveted jeans featuring the the copper rivets that reinforced the stress points on a piece of denim clothing.

Denim fabric and blue jeans actually date back much further. They originally came out of Genoa, Italy and Nimes, France around the 17th century. The weavers in Genoa made a fabric that is similar to today’s fabric.

How did the actual name “jeans” come about? Well, seeing as the French name for Genoa is Gênes, this likely is the origin of the modern name. As for the word “denim”, this likely came from the French version of the Genoan fabric called “de Nimes”.

The working class loved denim for it’s durabiltiy. Then in the 1950’s jeans exploded into popular culture with help from the Greaser subculture which was inspired by James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause.

While the jeans of today come in all shapes and sizes, there’s one thing they all have in common.