BLUE JEANS AND LEVI STRAUSS/ Los vaqueros y Levi Strauss

Good morning my dear friends, it's sure that many of you are wearing jeans right now, aren't you?  Nowadays, jeans are "a must" in our lives.  Everybody wears jeans.  We can find blue jeans in many colours and designs but definitely, they are "jeans".  Today, I want to tell you how the story of jeans started, let's go!

Buenos días mis queridos amigos/as, seguro que muchos de vosotros lleváis vaqueros en este momento ¿verdad? Hoy en día los vaqueros son "imprescindibles" en nuestras vidas.  Todo el mundo lleva vaqueros.  Podemos encontrar los vaqueros en muchos colores y diseños pero definitivamente son "vaqueros".  Hoy, quiero contaros cómo  empezó la historia de los vaqueros, ¡vamos!

GOLD RUSH
**In 1848, people came to California  from all over North America because gold was discovered there and all of them hoped to make their fortunes.  But not many of the miners became rich.
However, a lot of people  also came to sell the things that miners needed and so they made a lot of money!


**LEVI STRAUSS

Levi Strauss was a young man who went west to sell.  He came to America in 1847 from Europe with many immigrants.   In 1850, he arrived in San Francisco to work in a shop.
One day, a miner entered his shop.  His clothes were broken and terrible, especially his trousers.  The miner said: "Look at these pants. I bought them six months ago and now they're full of holes!"
Levi Strauss asked the miner why and he explained:  "We work on our knees for a lot of time".
Levi Strauss thought for a moment and said: "What you need is a really strong material. We have some canvas in stock.  It is used to make tents but we can make your pants out of canvas, I'm really sure that they won't get holes!"
The miner didn't hesitate and Levi Strauss took him to a tailor who made the pants.



**GOLD MINING
The miner came back to his camp in the mountains where he was looking for gold.  His friends laughed at him when they saw his new pants but he told them:  "You won't laugh when you see how strong my pants are!"  And he was right.  As the months passed, his friends saw that his pants were impeccable!  So, the miner's friends went to San Francisco to Levi Strauss' shop, to buy some of the new canvas trousers...

And they told their friends, and their friends told their friends ...  and so you can imagine the result!

**LEVI STRAUSS WORKSHOP
As many people wanted to buy Levi Strauss' canvas trousers he had to start a workshop to make them.
These trousers were called "JEANS" because the canvas that they were made from was known as "toile de Gênes" which  is the French word for Genoa (Génova), in Italy, where the canvas was manufactured.
Soon Levi Strauss needed more canvas than his agents could send him so they asked him  to try something new.  It was called "serge de Nîmes".  It was as strong as canvas but finer.  Levi Strauss thought that his customers were going to love it!  And they did!  So, the word "denim" comes from "serge de Nîmes".

**COWBOYS
But not only miners were wearing Levi's jeans, soon cowboys began to ask for them too.  Levi's workshop was too small so he had to build factories.  He asked for thousands of rolls of material but these rolls weren't all the same colour.  He decided to dye them all blue.  That is why they are called "blue jeans".

One day, a tailor called Jacob Davis, came to see Levi Strauss and told him that his customers said that the pockets were not as strong as the rest of the pants and that they often came off.  They decided attached them with copper rivets.  Levi made Jacob a partner and decided to use orange thread, the same colour as the rivets.

**A SUCCESS STORY
Nowadays, Levi's jeans are a multinational company.
When Oscar Levi Strauss, a poor immigrant from Europe, died in 1902, he had certainly made his fortune.  He left  $6 million, enormous donations to good causes and money for students at the University of California.
Today, poor students still get money from his fortune!!

VOCABULARY
- GOLD RUSH:  la fiebre del oro.
- TO HOPE:  esperar, confiar.
- WEST:  oeste.
- TO BUY - BOUGHT - BOUGHT:  comprar.
- CANVAS: lona
- HOLE:  agujero.
- KNEE:  rodilla.
- PANTS: pantalones (USA)
- TENT: tienda de campaña
- TAILOR:  sastre.
- WORKSHOP:  taller.
- CUSTOMER:  cliente.
- FACTORY:  fábrica.
- TO MANUFACTURE:  fabricar.
- TO COME OFF:  desprenderse.
- COPPER:  cobre.
- TO DYE:  teñir.
- TO DIE:  morir.
- PARTNER: socio.
- POCKET: bolsillo.
- STILL:  todavía.
- THREAD:  hilo.

I HOPE YOU'LL LIKE THE STORY OF LEVI STRAUSS JEANS!!

HAVE A NICE DAY!!