Today, jeans are not a luxury item, but casual wear. However, only 25 years ago they were a real rarity, accessible only to selected citizens of the USSR. During the years of total scarcity, the lucky owners of this wardrobe item wore them to holes, and brand names were pronounced with trepidation.
Despite all reverence for foreign companies that produce jeans, some of the names were mistaken in the name. So, for example, happened to the famous brand Levi's, whose name was pronounced in different ways. What are they and how is it read correctly: “Levis” or “Levis”? Let's find out about this, and at the same time find out the history of the appearance of the brand itself.
Levi's legendary jeans maker
Before you consider how to spell the name of the most famous jeans brand, you should find out how this type of clothing was invented.
Trousers called "jeans" (they are currently wearing a good half of the readers of the article) were invented in the XIX century. a Bavarian Jew named Löb Strauß (Loeb Strauss).
When the boy was eighteen, he and his mother and sisters moved from Europe to the United States. By that time, his two older brothers had been selling haberdashery in New York for several years.
Young Loeb soon joined the family business. And in order to make it easier to adapt in a new country, he changed his first and last name to similar American counterparts in sound, thus becoming Levi Straus (the translations of Levi Strauss, Levi Strauss are also found).
A year after arriving in the United States, the young man began to make good money traveling around the country as a traveling salesman. The start of the gold rush was particularly conducive to his success.
Once, when he was delivering fabrics to his brothers in San Francisco, Levy was lucky. While traveling on a ship, his companions traveling to the mines bought almost all goods from Ostrich. The only thing left for the merchant is a useless canvas. In order not to spend money, and most importantly - precious time to travel for a new product, the young man decided to take a chance. He came up with a model of durable trousers for prospectors and ordered the tailor to sew them from his canvas.
Ostrich's new invention was to the taste of all the seeker of gold - trousers instantly sold out. To sew new ones, Levy had to buy all the sails on more than 700 ships in the local harbor. With the proceeds, the young businessman opened his own haberdashery store, naming it after himself - Levi Strauss & Co.
The origin of the word denim
Trading heavy-duty trousers for prospectors brought Levi Straus a good income. Moreover, he patented each of his innovations, and this helped him to remain a monopolist in this area.
Over time, he decided to replace the fabric. Instead of a hard canvas, a durable natural canvas called “twill”, which was brought from the French town of Nimes, began to be used. His special blue color was loved by Ostrich customers. Soon, the entire fabric for jeans began to be named after this canvas - Serge de Nime (twill from Nimes) or abbreviated "denim". By the way, this name has been preserved to this day.
The invention of rivets on jeans pockets
With Levi's light hand, jeans became very popular clothing, and soon many other companies began to produce similar trousers. To remain a leader in this field, Ostrich had to constantly improve his invention and patent ideas.
Once a certain Nevada tailor Jacob Davis sent a letter to the head of Levi Strauss & Co. In it, he talked about his innovation - reinforcing pockets with rivets. Ostrich liked the idea, and together with the tailor, he patented it. This innovation allowed Levy to increase his profits several times and make his company a leader.
The famous Levi's 501 model
After nearly twenty years of successful work in the field of tailoring jeans and jackets for them, Straus decided it was time to streamline his product line. To do this, he began to number each new trouser style. However, having definitely not kept records of models before, Levy decided to start counting from 501 numbers. For this reason, Levi's 501 jeans became the first official model of Levi Strauss & Co. By the way, to this day they are very popular all over the world.
Levi's jeans today
Loeb Strauss lived for 72 years and died at the very beginning of the 20th century. Having no children of his own, he bequeathed his super-successful venture to the children of his brothers and sisters, who still run Levi Strauss & Co.
Despite the existence of many other jeans companies today, Levi's continues to be one of the leaders in this field.
In fairness, it should be noted that the descendants of Levy for more than a hundred years of ownership of the company did not bring anything particularly new, successfully exploiting the achievements of their ingenious ancestor. At the same time, they managed to keep Levi Strauss & Co company even in the conditions of the 2008 crisis, which is also worthy of respect.
How to spell the name of this brand and why
After reviewing the history of Levi's brand and its creator, it's time to find out how to spell the word and why.
So, although the name of the company is Levi Strauss & Co, the jeans produced by them bear the name Levi's. This word is absolutely always spelled with the apostrophe and never Levis. Since in this case this sign signals that the noun Levi (Levi) is in the possessive form, which in English is indicated by adding the ending 's to it. So literally, the phrase Levi's jeans translates as “Lewis jeans.”
“Levis” or “Levize” - that’s the question!
Having figured out the correct spelling of the name of the pants, you should finally learn about the pronunciation. How is it - “Levis” or “Levis”?
As mentioned above, the brand name was formed on behalf of its creator - Loeb Strauss, more precisely from its American counterpart Levi. This noun in the Russian language also has an analogue - Levy. Based on this, when asked about how to pronounce - “Lewis” or “Levis” - the name of a global brand, it would be worth answering that “Lewis”.
However, Levi in English sounds like “Levy,” and therefore, the brand name, according to the rules of the English language, will be “Levis,” not “Levis.” And according to the rules for translating names from foreign languages into Russian, the original sound must be preserved.
How this word is transcribed
Having considered how “Levis” or “Levise” is right, and why exactly, you should pay attention to the transcription of the noun. After all, as you know, British and American versions of the English language are slightly different.
For the British, the word Levi's transcription is [li: vaɪz]. Therefore, it turns out that, from their point of view, the name of the jeans brand is not one of the above options. So among the inhabitants of Foggy Albion, the brainchild of Leb Strauss is called “Levyse”, and not “Levis” or “Levyse”.
As correctly noted in the previous paragraph, you need to pronounce the brand name as it is done in its homeland. And for Ostrich jeans, this is the United States, not the United Kingdom. Therefore, you need to focus on the American transcription of the word. And she looks like this: [ levəs ].
Therefore, judging by the transcription, the name of the brand is pronounced to the question of how to correctly “Lewis” or “Levis”, the second answer will be the correct answer.
Despite the confusion in the pronunciation of the Levi's brand name in Russian, the jeans and shoes of this company, both several decades ago and today, remain beloved in the vastness of the former Soviet Union. And for most citizens it does not matter how their name should be pronounced. As William Shakespeare said: "What does the name mean? A rose smells like a rose, even though you call it a rose, though not." In the same way with jeans - quality things will always be bought, regardless of their name.