Overalls
trousers with attached bib and shoulder straps
Overalls or bib-and-brace overalls, also 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".
Overalls were originally made of denim, but they can also be made of other materials such as corduroy, chino cloth, or leather. Overalls were invented in the mid to late 1890s by Grace Howard and Jacob W. Davis at Levi Strauss & Co., but they went through an evolution to reach their modern form. Initially created to serve as protective clothing during physically demanding work, they have since also become a fashion garment. Many high-fashion brands have released their own spin on overalls. Today, overalls can still be found in some workplaces, while also being worn casually by all kinds of people.
History
Beginnings
The exact beginnings of the wearing of overalls are unclear, but they are mentioned in literature as early as 1776 as protective working garments commonly worn by enslaved people.
The first evidence of overalls being mass-produced are those made by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis in the 1890s. The first "jeans" they invented were actually "waist overalls", consisting of denim pants with suspenders attached with buttons, but without a bib.
The public source identifies “Overalls” as trousers with attached bib and shoulder straps. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Overalls, trousers and attached.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13383825. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1776.
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This entry incorporates text from “Overalls” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.