Today, jeans are by far the most popular clothing item around the world: they’re comfortable, they’re resistant and some of them even have pockets large enough for a Samsung Note to fit in! Yet, there’s one question that really bugs some of us out there:
What are those small buttons actually for?
Sure, one might say it’s their design, but let’s think about it: the first pair of jeans appeared over 130 years ago, so how could a trend hold on for so long? Let’s go back in time to find the answer.
One day in 1873, Jacob Davis, a tailor working for Levi Strauss, was working as usual. Suddenly, the wife of a local worker showed up with a rather unusual request. She wanted a pair of pants for her husband that wouldn’t fall apart –Â no matter what. And Jacob surely took her proposition very seriously!
This is how the first pairs of jeans appeared …
So the worker’s wife asked for a pair of pants that wouldn’t tear apart, which is exactly what mine workers, for instance, needed. Apart from sewing the resistant material really well, Jacob came up with a brilliant idea: buttons.
The small buttons are placed in the area of pockets, which is where it’s most likely for jeans to fall apart! This brilliant solution was incredibly useful back in the day and it remained so until nowadays, making jeans one of the most resistant daily clothing items in the world.
