How Wrangler came to be...In 1897, At the tender age of 20, C.C. Hudson left his home in Tennessee to find work in the growing town of Greenboro, North Carolina. His got his first position was in a textile factory that produces overalls. For only 25 cents a day he was employed to sew on buttons. When, in 1904, the factory had decided to close, C.C. Hudson seized his chance to open his own business. He rounded up some of his old work friends, bought a couple of sewing machines from their old employer, rented a small business space and opened his own company.... the Hudson Overall Company.
By 1919, for reasons best know to C.C. Hudson, he decided to change the name of the company to the "Blue Bell Overall Company", which in 1926 was sold for a whopping $585,000. Keeping hold of the name, Mr Hudson retained offices in Greensboro (though they where now FAR larger). Then In 1936 the company introduced a sheer revolutionary new fabric that limited the shrinking after washing to under 1%. It is called 100% Sanforized Fabric. This placed the company again at the forefront of the market. As the company continued to expand to began to takeover smaller companies and eventually, in 1943, they acquired a company named "Casey Jones Work-Clothes" and with it a brand name that shall make them famous in the future: "Wrangler".
Although Blue Bell owned the name, it was not until 1947 that they knew what to do with it but, with a spark of inspiration, Wrangler was chosen to name their newly designed Western Wear product line. To push into the Rodeo and Western wear market they hired a star designer and tailor of this particular scene, Rodeo Ben. To build the brand and connect the name with durability and quality the company convinced celebrity rodeo stars like Jim Shoulders, Bill Linderman and Freckles Brown to wear and test the fabric - named 13MWZ -. After the Rodeo Championships in 1949 the success of "Wrangler" was programmed. The Wrangler jeans became clearly the number 1 among all outfitters of the Western Wear Scene. This was set in stone in 1974 the Wrangler Jeans became "Official Jeans of the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association".
Eventually it came time for the company to look overseas and eventually, in 1962, Blue Bell offered its services to overseas interest and established it's first European factory in Belgium. In an interesting twist, the next year the term "teenager" was first used in "Newsweek magazine" and modelled the cover girl of their magazine issue in a Wrangler Jeans. During the following years, especially during the 70's the Wrangler Jeans managed to reach cult status among Teenagers and Twenty something's.
Over the years the company has expanded, both in size and variety of products offered, and eventually merged with the VF Corporation of Pennsylvania in 1986. VF is now one of the two leading jeans manufacturers in the world and holds a market share of approximately 25%. In 1996 every fifth sold jeans in the world was a Wrangler. In 2007 the brand Wrangler had its 60th anniversary - 110 years after C.C. Hudson went to Greensboro.
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