Oooo, I am excited for this post! If you’ve been here before, you know I’m denim obsessed. Jeans represent my truest form of sartorial expression. Over the course of my life, I’ve owned and sold hundreds of pairs.
At their core, jeans are profoundly American. From their inception during the California Gold Rush, to the advent of designer jeans, denim DNA is trailblazing.
Denim Origin
So how did this all begin?
Denim as a fabric was first created in Nîmes, France. Its original name was “serge de Nîmes” which became known as “denim.”
It was, of course, Levi Strauss who took this to a whole other level by creating blue jeans in the mid-1800’s. The durable fabric was meant to be worn by gold miners – the pockets were made large to fit pieces of gold – and were adapted by cowboys in the 1920s thanks to Strauss’s genius mass production and marketing.
Fun fact: Outlaw Peart Hart was arrested for wearing jeans in the early 1900s. Not considered appropriate dress for women at the time, they forced her to put on a dress for her mug shot.
That’s my kind of gal.
Denim Trends
When it comes to jeans, my preference is very cyclical. I’ve been on (and off) just about every denim bandwagon, but after decades of research, I’ve finally found my holy grail.
I love a wide leg or a flare every now and then, but my M.O. from here on out is 100% cotton or bust. I recently cleaned out my closet and as I was going through what to toss and what to keep, I couldn’t believe how strange my stretchy jeans felt. They all got donated.
The best thing you can do for 100% cotton jeans is never wash them. Yep, I mean it. As a mother of a toddler, I occasionally have to break this rule, but I try VERY hard not to.
Denim Resources
If you’re denim obsessed like me, check these out.
This Instagram account is fabulous for vintage Levi’s, exclusive drops and true denim nerds.
Jeff Goldblum did a documentary on jeans that covers enthusiasts who go searching through mines and those that pay thousands for vintage threads.
Download the Levi’s app for exclusive deals on vintage denim. I just scored an authenticated vintage pair of 501 cutoffs.
Check out Levi’s most well-known and respected collector Brit Eaton. He has a private Instagram account where he sells vintage Levi’s he finds throughout the world.
Last week I shared some 
Size 25 (left) // Size 26 (right)