Do you know where blue jeans are from? It is said that gold miners in the California Gold Rush used to get a lot of holes in their pants. In the 1850s, Levi Strauss, from Germany, solved their problem. He used tent material to make extra-strong pants. In this way, the 24-year-old businessman also made his fortune. "Jeans" was the name of the strong cotton fabric Straus used which came from Italy and the French called it"genes" after the name of that city. Today the fabric is called denim and the pants are called jeans.