The first jeans did not appear until the middle of the last century. But the tough, hard-wearing cotton material from which they are made had been around for a long time before that. Only it wasn’t used for making trousers. Imagine Nelson in blue jeans – or Mozart!
In England this was called ‘gene fustian’ because the material was first made in the Italian port of Genoa. It reached England by way of France, where Genoa was called Genes. Genes became ‘gene’. Gene became ‘jene’. ‘Jene’ became ‘jean’. And when Levi Strauss started to make working trousers out of this material around 1850, they were naturally called ‘jeans’.
Picture Credit : Google
