Short answer: Denim wasn’t “invented” by one person; it evolved from a sturdy twill cloth called “serge de Nîmes” developed by weavers in Nîmes, France, in the 17th–18th centuries, with the name “denim” deriving from that phrase. Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis later patented riveted blue jeans in 1873, but they did not invent denim itself.
What “denim” means
The word “denim” is widely accepted as a contraction of the French term “serge de Nîmes,” literally “serge from Nîmes,” referring to a durable twill originally produced in the city of Nîmes, France. Accounts trace the fabric’s emergence to attempts by Nîmes weavers to reproduce other hard‑wearing textiles, resulting in a distinctive, rugged cotton twill that became known by its place of origin.
No single inventor
Historians generally do not credit a single inventor for denim; instead, it is treated as a regional textile innovation that matured over time in Nîmes and Europe’s textile trade, with “denim” naming the fabric and not a patented invention by one person. The European roots are often contrasted with “jeane/jean,” a related hard-wearing cloth associated with Genoa, Italy, which influenced the workwear tradition later popularized in America.
Jeans vs. denim
Levi Strauss, a dry-goods merchant, and Jacob Davis, a tailor, secured U.S. Patent No. 139,121 on May 20, 1873, for using metal rivets to reinforce stress points on work trousers—what became blue jeans—made from tough denim cloth. This patent marked the birth of riveted blue jeans and the start of mass manufacturing, but it did not constitute the invention of the denim fabric itself.
