Wrangler is an American manufacturer of jeans and other clothing items, particularly workwear. The brand is owned by Kontoor Brands Inc., which also owns Lee. Its headquarters is in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, in the United States, with production plants located throughout the world.
Wrangler Jeans were first made by the Blue Bell Overall Company, which had acquired the brand when it took over Casey Jones in the mid-1940s. Blue Bell employed Bernard Lichtenstein ("Rodeo Ben"[1]), a Polish tailor from Łódź who worked closely with cowboys, to help design jeans suitable for rodeo use.[2] He convinced several well-known rodeo riders of the time to endorse the new design.[3]
The 13MWZ style, short for the thirteenth version of men's western jeans with zipper, was introduced in 1947.[4] This model is still available and the company has since introduced several other lines that are more designated towards a specific group or demographic. Examples include 20X, Riggs, and Aura. Wrangler also exports its goods to many countries, with Europe and Australia being some of its main export markets.[citation needed]
1897: Twenty-year-old C.C. Hudson leaves Spring Hill Farm in Williamson County, Tennessee, and makes his way to Greensboro, North Carolina, seeking his fortune in the emerging textile industry. He finds work in a factory making overalls, where he earns 25 cents a day sewing on buttons.
1904; Hudson's workplace closes. He and a few others buy several of the sewing machines, lease space above a downtown grocery store and incorporate as the Hudson Overall Company.
1919: The business builds its first factory on South Elm Street in Greensboro and changes its name to Blue Bell Overall Company.
1936: Blue Bell launches Super Big Ben Overalls made out of 100% Sanforized Fabric that reduces shrinkage after washing to less than 1%. This sets a new standard for the industry.
1943: Blue Bell acquires the Casey Jones Work-Clothes Company and the rights to a rarely used Casey Jones brand name: Wrangler.
1946: Blue Bell starts to develop a jeans line for cowboys, hiring famous tailor "Rodeo Ben". Blue Bell workers take part in a contest to give the jeans a brand name. The winning name is Wrangler, synonymous with the name for a working cowboy.
1947: After designing and testing 13 pairs of prototype jeans, Blue Bell introduces the Wrangler 11MWZ to American consumers. The Wrangler Jeans featured several innovations aimed particularly at cowboys: Felled outseams and inseams, rear pockets positioned for comfort in the saddle, 'no scratch' rivet pocket reinforcement, a zipper fly, and the use of a strong tack in the crotch instead of a metal rivet. A promotional campaign is launched featuring 11MWZ test riders and rodeo legends Freckles Brown, Bill Linderman, and Jim Shoulders.
1952: Lot number 11MWZ is renamed 13MWZ to conform to the 13-ounce-per-yard (400g/m) denim weight being used to manufacture the style.
1962: Blue Bell opens a factory in Belgium and the Wrangler brand name enjoys a successful launch in Europe.
1986: Blue Bell merges with the VF Corporation of Pennsylvania.
1996: One of every five pairs of jeans sold in America is a Wrangler.[citation needed]
1997: The 50th anniversary of the 13MWZ. A Special Collectors Edition of the 13MWZ is created to celebrate this event.
2000: "Whatever You Ride" television ad campaign is launched, focusing on core brand values.
2001: Wrangler commences making its jeans in Mexico.
2002: "There's a bit of the West in all of us" TV and print ad campaign is launched.
2004: A new Wrangler European print campaign is launched, "Wanted," representing a modern expression of Wrangler's roots. Wrangler also celebrates 100 years of manufacturing quality denim by producing Blue Bell by Wrangler, a limited edition collection that reproduces the first Wrangler jeans right down to the last detail. Wrangler also reworks the mainstream collection, producing new fits using icons inspired by the very first jeans designed by Rodeo Ben. The Wrangler brand is now recognized[clarification needed] in 22 European countries.
2005: Wrangler's last U.S. sewing plant is closed.
2011: Wrangler conducts consumer design competition to find the next thing in jeans.[5] The winner, Song Anh Nguyen of Greensboro, had her design produced by Wrangler and made available for sale.[6]
2018: Wrangler parent company VF Corporation announces plans to spin off its jeans operations including Wrangler into a separate public company.[7]
2019: Wrangler, together with Lee and Rock & Republic, becomes part of Kontoor Brands, an independent publicly traded spin-off from VF Corporation.[8]
2022: Wrangler Apparel Corp. files a U.S. trademark application for the name WRANGLERVERSE for, among other services, hosting live and virtual performances, concerts, and social entertainment events and providing virtual environments in which users can interact for recreational, leisure, or entertainment purposes. The application signals an intent to expand the WRANGLER brand into the Metaverse.[9]
Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and patented by Davis and Levi Strauss on May 20, 1873. Prior to the patent, the term "blue jeans" had been long in use for various garments, constructed from blue-colored denim.
Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weave produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. While a denim predecessor known as dungaree has been produced in India for hundreds of years, denim as it is recognized today was first produced in Nîmes, France.
Levi Strauss & Co. is an American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in May 1853 when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, to open a West Coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. Although the corporation is registered in Delaware, the company's corporate headquarters is located in Levi's Plaza in San Francisco.
Overalls or bib-and-brace overalls, also sometimes called dungarees in British English, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers".
JanSport is an American brand of backpacks and collegiate apparel, now owned by VF Corporation, one of the world's largest apparel companies. JanSport is the world's largest backpack maker, and together, JanSport and The North Face, also owned by VF Corporation, sell nearly half of all small backpacks sold in the United States.
Guess Inc. is an American clothing company, notable for its black-and-white advertisements. Guess licenses its brand on other fashion accessories, such as watches, jewelry, perfumes, bags and shoes.
Western wear is a category of men's and women's clothing which derives its unique style from the clothes worn in the 19th century Wild West. It ranges from accurate historical reproductions of American frontier clothing, to the stylized garments popularized by Western film and television or singing cowboys such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers in the 1940s and 1950s. It continues to be a fashion choice in the West and Southwestern United States, as well as people associated with country music or Western lifestyles, for example the various Western or Regional Mexican music styles. Western wear typically incorporates one or more of the following, Western shirts with pearl snap fasteners and vaquero design accents, blue jeans, cowboy hat, a leather belt, and cowboy boots.
Lee is an American brand of denim jeans, first produced in 1889 in Salina, Kansas. The company is owned by Kontoor Brands, a spin-off of VF Corporation's Jeanswear Division. Since 2019 its headquarters has been in Greensboro, North Carolina, relocated from Merriam, Kansas. The company states that it is an international retailer and manufacturer of casual wear and work wear and that it has more than 400 employees in the United States. In Australasia, the brand has been owned by Pacific Brands since 2007, after it was acquired from Yakka.
VF Corporation is an American global apparel and footwear company founded in 1899 by John Barbey and headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The company's 13 brands are organized into three categories: Outdoor, Active and Work. In 2015, the company controlled 55% of the U.S. backpack market with the JanSport, Eastpak, Timberland, and The North Face brands.
Lucky Brand is an American denim company founded in Vernon, California in 1990 by Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman. Lucky also produces other apparel, including activewear, outerwear, T-shirts, and professional attire.
Rock & Republic is an American jeans brand founded by Michael Ball in 2002. Ball is a cyclist who gained design experience by creating his cycling team's uniforms. Rock & Republic's line of jeans and casual wear "VB Rocks" was designed by singer Victoria Beckham until 2008.
Acne Studios is a multidisciplinary luxury fashion house based in Stockholm, Sweden that specializes in men's and women's ready-to-wear fashion, footwear, accessories and denim. When founded in 1996, the label derived its name from the creative collective ACNE; initially an acronym for Associated Computer Nerd Enterprises and later a backronym of Ambition to Create Novel Expressions.
Duck Head is a brand name for clothing and shoes in the United States. First registered as a trademark in the late 19th century, the name has been used by several different manufacturers and retailers of apparel, primarily in the southern United States. Duck Head apparel had a period of great popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Frank Mechaly in Marseille, France and raised in St. Tropez, is a jeans designer and brand maker, specializing in premium denim. Though he has successfully launched a number of brands including Sacred Blue and Blue Cult, he is probably best known as the founder and creator of 575 DENIM which has been embraced by celebrities such as Cameron Diaz who made a point of publicly acknowledging her affinity for the jeans during an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Mechaly has now launched his much-anticipated new brand of premium denim called RockStar.
Jacob William Davis was an American tailor of Jewish origin who is credited with inventing modern jeans. Growing up in Russian Empire, he emigrated to the United States as a young man and spent some time in Canada as well. He invented jeans by using sturdy cloth and rivets to strengthen weak points in the seams, and partnered with Levi Strauss to mass-produce them.
Ralph Lauren Corporation is an American publicly traded fashion company that was founded in 1967 by American fashion designer Ralph Lauren. Headquartered in New York City, the company produces products ranging from the mid-range to the luxury segments. Ralph Lauren is known for marketing and distributing products in four categories: apparel, home, accessories, and fragrances. Known mostly for its flagship brand Polo Ralph Lauren, the company's brands include mid-range, sub-premium, and premium labels up to its highest priced luxury Purple label apparel. The company additionally owned Club Monaco from 1999 to 2021.
Arvind Limited is a textile manufacturer and the flagship company of the Lalbhai Group. Its headquarters are in Naroda, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, and it has units at Santej. The company manufactures cotton shirting, denim, knits and bottomweight (khaki) fabrics. It has also recently ventured into technical textiles with its Advanced Materials Division in 2011. It is India's largest denim manufacturer.
Brittania Sportswear Ltd was a Wyomissing, PA-based clothing company best known for women's jeans in the 1970s and 1980s. It is not to be confused with Britannia Clothing Company, a United Kingdom clothing company.
Kontoor Brands is an American clothing company. It was a spin off from the VF Corporation in May 2019, and markets denim clothing under the Lee, Wrangler and Rock & Republic brand names. Kontoor Brands also operates the VF Outlet chain of factory outlet stores. Its head office is in Greensboro, North Carolina.
References
↑ DeWeese, G. Daniel (7 July 2012). "Rodeo Ben's Jeans". True West Magazine. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
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