The history of denim and how jeans were created

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