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From the California gold rush to Sydney Sweeney: How denim became the most enduring garment in American fashion
Jodie Foster, Billie Perkins, and Robert De Niro perform a scene in Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese in 1976 in New York, New York.
Michael Ochs Archives | Moviepix | Getty Images
In the dwindling days of the California gold rush, the wife of a local miner faced a problem.
Her husband’s denim work pants kept ripping, so her tailor, Jacob Davis, had the idea to add copper rivets to key points of strain, like the pocket corners and the base of the button fly, to keep them from tearing.
Davis’ “riveted pants” soon became a roaring success and, unbeknownst to him at the time, marked the official birth of the blue jean, a garment that would transform fashion and come to represent the United States around the globe.
“It really has democratized American fashion and it also is the greatest export that we have sent to the world, because people identify jeans specifically with American Western culture,” said Shawn Grain Carter, a fashion professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “It doesn’t matter your economic or social class. It doesn’t matter what your views are in terms of the political spectrum. Everybody wears denim.”
Jacob Davis
Courtesy: Levi Strauss & Co.
These days, denim is a major sales driver for retailers big and small, as the global denim market reached $101 billion this year, up 28% from 2020, according to data from market research company Euromonitor International. Major apparel companies from American Eagle to Levi Strauss are in a race to corner that market, leaning on A-list celebrities like Sydney Sweeney and Beyonce to win over shoppers and drive sales in an unsteady economy.
But if it weren’t for Levi Strauss, founder of the eponymous blue jeans company, Davis’ invention may not have gone far beyond the railroad town where it was created in the early 1870s.
How Levi’s created blue jeans
Soon after Davis created his riveted pants, called “waist overalls” or “overalls” at the time, they began selling like “hot cakes” and he needed a business partner to secure a patent, said Tracey Panek, Levi’s in-house historian. So he wrote to Strauss, a Bavarian-born immigrant who was running a successful wholesale business in San Francisco and had supplied Davis the denim he used to create his riveted pants.
“The secret of them Pents is the Rivits that I put in those Pockets and I found the demand so large that I cannot make them up fast enough,” Davis wrote Strauss in a letter, according to PBS.
Levi Strauss
Courtesy: Levi Strauss & Co.
Strauss, an “astute” businessman, recognized the opportunity and agreed to partner with Davis, said Panek.
“This would have been the first time that Levi was actually” manufacturing his own products, said Panek. “He was no longer just importing and selling other people’s goods. He was manufacturing himself and selling to retailers.”
On May 20, 1873, the two men secured a patent for the riveted pants and eventually opened a factory on Fremont Street, close to the modern-day Salesforce tower in San Francisco’s financial district.
They promised to offer workers the most durable jeans on the market and soon, business was booming.
Dude ranch duds and the American worker
Through Strauss’ connections as a wholesaler, the company’s riveted overalls soon spread across the U.S., becoming the garment of choice for working men everywhere: miners, cowboys, farmers – any role that required durable clothing.
Jeans were exclusively reserved for work settings at the time, but as emerging denim manufacturers vied for a similar customer base, they looked to expand their assortment to drive sales.
“Slowly and steadily into the 20th century, you start to see some of these manufacturers making variations,” said Sonya Abrego, a New York City-based fashion historian. “There was this one design called spring bottom pants that was kind of a more form fitted, a more dressed up, a slightly flared, maybe what the factory foreman would be wearing, right? As opposed to just the guy on the shop floor.”
In 1934, Levi created the first ever line of jeans for women. Around that time, denim started to become more popular in settings outside of work, primarily for activities like dude ranch vacations, camping and horseback riding.
“So they were kind of taking on a cowboy’s garment or a worker’s garment but wearing it in a … resort setting,” said Abrego.
Courtesy: Levi Strauss & Co.
Dude ranch vacations had become popular because there were finally highways connecting different parts of the country, and few were willing to venture to Europe during a war. Companies like Levi began releasing advertisements highlighting their denim as “dude ranch duds” and “authentic western riding wear” to capture shoppers looking for jeans to bring with them on vacation, according to archival advertisements from the time.
These cultural moments helped to expand denim beyond workers, but jeans didn’t become widespread casual attire until after World War II, when American fashion overall started to shift.
The rise of the backyard BBQ
By the time World War II ended, the mighty American consumer was beginning to emerge. For years, Americans had been forced to ration common goods like rubber, sugar and meat while simultaneously being encouraged to save their money by buying war bonds and socking away spare cash.
When the country shifted from wartime to peacetime, Americans were ready to splurge and soon began spending big on new cars, appliances and clothes.
“With a little bit more money to spend, you start seeing a bigger push for leisure clothes and fun clothes and play clothes, clothes to wear to backyard barbecues,” said Abrego. “Clothes that we would consider today as just like casual style.”
Courtesy: Levi Strauss & Co.
Slowly and surely, it became more and more acceptable for both men and women to wear jeans outside of work settings. Then, denim manufacturers made a push to allow jeans in schools.
“They wanted to sell to as many people as they possibly could,” said Abrego. “The idea that jeans are good for school means that they’re good for every day.”
By the time the 1960s hit, denim manufacturers had expanded their products and were selling a wide variety of colors, fits and styles. It became a symbol of the hippie movement and a mainstay on Hollywood sets.
Soon, denim was everywhere, and the 1970s brought the iconic bell bottom pants and the first iteration of the “designer jean” — denim pants being produced by labels and brands whose designs had nothing to do with work wear or western wear, like Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt.
Since then, denim has remained a constant in global fashion. While silhouettes, washes and fits have changed over time, jeans never really go out of style, which is what makes them so enduring, said Abrego.
“This is a design from 1873 … do we see anything else from 1873 on the street? It’s kind of wild if you think about it that way,” said Abrego. “We can talk about all the details, all the changes in manufacturing and all the different fits and finishes but it’s a recognizable thing, it’s still a pair of jeans. For me as a historian, that continuity is so compelling because I can’t really name anything else that has stayed the same to this degree.”
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Budget 2026: FM Nirmala Sitharaman gives a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, while proposing a simpler tax and customs system.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the Union Budget 2026-27.
Budget 2026 Takeaways: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday presented the Union Budget 2026-27, giving a strong push to manufacturing, infrastructure and job creation, proposing a simpler tax and customs regime, and hailing the government’s modernisation drive as a “reforms express”.
The Budget 2026 is anchored around three ‘kartavyas’ — driving growth by enhancing productivity and competitiveness, building people’s capacity, and ensuring inclusive development under the vision of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas.
In her ninth consecutive Budget in Parliament, Sitharaman laid out a multi-pronged strategy to sustain growth amid global uncertainty, including expanding domestic electronics and semiconductor capabilities, de-risking infrastructure projects, skilling India’s youth for emerging technologies, and easing compliance for taxpayers and importers.
Here are the key takeaways from Budget 2026 across manufacturing, infrastructure, skills, AI, taxation and customs duty.
Manufacturing Gets A Boost
Budget 2026 put a special emphasis on the manufacturing landscape in India. The outlay for electronics components manufacturing was raised sharply to Rs 40,000 crore, while new schemes for rare earth magnets, chemical parks, container manufacturing and capital goods seek to reduce import dependency, and strengthen domestic supply chains. Textiles got an integrated, employment-oriented package covering fibres, clusters, skilling and sustainability.
Infrastructure-Led Growth
Infrastructure got a boost with a higher capex allocation and initiatives like a risk guarantee fund to de-risk projects for private developers, new dedicated freight corridors and national waterways, dedicated REITs (real estate investment trusts) for recycling of significant real estate assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), and a seaplane VGF (viability gap funding) scheme.
The Centre’s capital expenditure (capex) target has been increased to Rs 12.2 lakh crore for FY27, up from Rs 11.2 lakh crore earmarked for the current financial year. Moreover, maintaining the fiscal discipline, Sitharaman said the government expects the fiscal deficit to be at 4.3 per cent of the GDP in 2026-27, lower than 4.4 per cent projected for the current financial year.
Tier-II and Tier-III cities were placed at the centre of urban growth via City Economic Regions, backed by reform-linked funding.
“We shall continue to focus on developing infrastructure in cities with over 5 lakh population (Tier II and Tier III), which have expanded to become growth centres,” Sitharaman said in her Budget Speech.
Greater Emphasis On Skilling
The Budget placed renewed emphasis on the services economy as a jobs engine. A high-powered Education-to-Employment and Enterprise Committee will realign skilling with market needs, including the impact of emerging technologies.
Content creation and creative industries get a boost through AVGC labs in schools and colleges, support for animation, gaming and comics, and new institutional capacity for design and hospitality. Tourism-linked skilling, from guides to digital heritage documentation, signals a clear intent to convert culture and content into employment and exports.
“I propose to support the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies, Mumbai in setting up AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges,” FM Sitharaman said. AVGC stands for animation, visual effects, gaming and comics.
AI & Semiconductors Push
Artificial intelligence (AI) was positioned as a cross-sector force multiplier rather than a standalone theme. The Budget provided a push to artificial intelligence (AI) by promoting adoption with governance, agriculture, education and skilling, including proposals for AI-enabled advisory tools for farmers and AI integration in education curricula.
On hardware, the semiconductor strategy expanded decisively under ISM 2.0 (India Semiconductor Mission 2.0), with focus on domestic equipment manufacturing, materials, research centres and workforce development, signalling a long-term commitment to building a resilient chip ecosystem in India.
Taxation, ITR, TDS, TCS
A major structural reform comes with the Income Tax Act, 2025, effective April 1, 2026, containing simpler rules and redesigned forms.
Budget 2026 provided compliance relief for individuals, including extended timelines for revising returns to March 31 from December 31 earlier, staggered ITR due dates, and easier filing of Form 15G/15H through depositories.
Individuals with ITR-1 and ITR-2 returns will continue to file till July 31, and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till August 31, according to the Budget Speech 2026-27.
“I propose to extend time available for revising returns from 31st December to up to 31st March with the payment of a nominal fee. I also propose to stagger the timeline for filing of tax returns. Individuals with ITR 1 and ITR 2 returns will continue to file till 31st July and non-audit business cases or trusts are proposed to be allowed time till 31st August,” Sitharaman said.
TDS (Tax deducted at source) rules were clarified for manpower services, while a rule-based system for lower or nil TDS certificates is proposed. TCS rates were cut to 2% for overseas tour packages, education and medical expenses under liberalised remittance scheme (LRS). Litigation is targeted through integrated assessment and penalty orders, lower pre-deposit requirements, and wider immunity provisions.
TDS on the sale of immovable property by a non-resident will be deducted and deposited through resident buyer’s PAN (Permanent Account Number)-based challan instead of requiring TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number), Sitharaman said.
Customs Duty Tweaks
Customs duty rationalisation continued with a clear focus on domestic manufacturing, energy transition and ease of living. Exemptions have been extended or introduced for capital goods used in lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals processing, nuclear power projects and aircraft manufacturing.
Personal imports will become cheaper with a reduction in duty on goods for personal use from 20% to 10%. Seventeen cancer drugs and additional rare-disease treatments were exempted from customs duty. Process reforms aimed at trust-based, tech-driven clearances, faster cargo movement and lower compliance costs, especially for exporters and MSMEs (micro, small, medium and enterprises).
STT On F&O Hiked
The Budget increased securities transaction tax (STT) on futures trading from 0.02% to 0.05% and on options trading from 0.10% to 0.15%, a move that upset the capital markets with the BSE Sensex crashing more than 2,300 points from the day’s high and the NSE Nifty dropping to 24,571.75.
Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is a direct tax imposed on the buying and selling of securities in India.
Commenting on the Budget, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The Union Budget reflects the aspirations of 140 crore Indians. It strengthens the reform journey and charts a clear roadmap for Viksit Bharat.”
February 01, 2026, 14:43 IST
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Shanghai (China): The Consulate General of India in Shanghai welcomed the resumption of Air India’s direct flight services between Shanghai and New Delhi, marking a major step forward in restoring people-to-people, business and institutional connectivity between India and China.
According to an official release, the inaugural Shanghai-New Delhi flight departed today from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, carrying over 230 passengers on board the Boeing 787 aircraft. The relaunch comes after a gap of nearly six years and represents a significant milestone in normalising bilateral air connectivity following the suspension of services in early 2020.
Speaking on the occasion, Consul General Pratik Mathur said, “The resumption of direct flights between Shanghai and New Delhi is a tangible expression of the renewed momentum in India-China engagement. Enhanced air connectivity is essential for facilitating trade, tourism, academic exchanges and people-to-people contacts, particularly between India and East China. We are pleased to see Air India restoring this important link.”
As per a release, Air India will operate the route four times a week using its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft, featuring modernised cabins and enhanced onboard services. The restored service reflects the growing demand for travel between the two countries and the steady recovery of cross-border mobility. It will also support commercial, educational and cultural exchanges between India and the Yangtze River Delta region, one of China’s most economically dynamic clusters.
The Consulate General of India in Shanghai remains committed to supporting initiatives that strengthen connectivity and deepen cooperation across trade, investment, tourism, education and cultural exchange, the release stated.
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