In 1853, German immigrant Levi Strauss set up a business in California to sell supplies to the gold-rush miners and other retailers. In 1872, he was contacted by one of his customers, a tailor in Nevada, with an idea for riveting the corners of pants pockets to secure them against tearing. Lacking the funds for a patent, the tailor suggested a partnership, which Strauss accepted. The following year the two entrepreneurs began to manufacture a waist-high, riveted overall made of a heavy French twill cotton called serge de Nimes, from which we get the word denim. The fabric—and later the pants—also came to be called jeans after the “genes,” or Genoese sailors, whose trousers were made of the material.