June 5th launch of black twill hemp kilt

[motorman4life]

My understanding is that hemp is a material that hardly wears out. The first Levis jeans were made of hemp but it cost the company money as the jeans never wore out.

Not to change the subject, but since you brought it up, the first Levi's were made in San Francisco during the gold rush (early 1850's) and primarily sold to miners in the gold camps.

They were made from stolen ship sail fabric (called "coarse cotton drilling" at that time) taken from the many ships anchored in the San Francisco harbor. The first ones were dyed a variety of colors to help conceal dirt and disguise their origin. The indigo blue ones were most popular and the dye was very cheap, so that is why Strauss stuck with blue.

Their major sales point was that they were nearly indestructable. If some ship sails were made of hemp in the early 1850's, then that is what some Levi's were made of.. I guess that is possible. I had never heard that claim before. I have seen a pair of original/antique Levi's jeans from the 1860's (when they actually had to start breaking down and buying their fabric) and they appeared to be cotton denim to me.

This information is based upon newspaper articles from the time, letters Strauss wrote to his family in the East, police reports regarding the theft of sails from ships and documented orders for new sails that were purchased from the East to replace stolen ones.

[Dreadbelly]

Not to mention at that point growing hemp was illegal in the US.

BAH HUMBUG.

[macwilkin]

Not to mention at that point growing hemp was illegal in the US.

Not in the 19th century. Hemp was a major product of a number of states, including my own, Missouri. In fact, we had a Civil War battle at Lexington, Missouri, called "The Battle of the Hemp Bales" where the pro-Southern Missouri State Guard used wet bales of Hemp as a moving fortress to assault a Federal fortress. It was successful, btw.

Cheers,

Todd

[Geoduck]

Todd is absolutely correct. Hemp was made illegal during the Hoover administration, with primary support from the lumber industry and DuPont, who were at that point working on production of synthetics that would compete with hemp products.

I highly recommend "Reefer Maddness" for commedic value to see what type of propaganda was being released at that time.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing the hemp kilts. Utilikilts has thought about working with hemp, but the cost of obtaining U.S. hemp (Utilikilts uses 100% U.S. textiles) is just too prohibitive to work with.