Denim is Born
The Classic 501 Jean
How did jeans come about?
- 1853: Loeb “Levi” Strauss moves from Bavaria to San Francisco, selling imported clothing, underwear, umbrellas, handkerchiefs & bolts of fabric throughout the American West.
- 1872: Levi partners with Jacob Davis, a Reno, Nevada tailor, who presented Levi with his interesting way of riveting the pocket corners & button fly on men’s pants to make them stronger.
- 1873: Levi Strauss & Jacob Davis are granted a patent on the process of riveting pants. Blue jeans were born.
- Late 1880s: Levi’s famous 501® jean was a best seller.
"The pants - called 'waist overalls' - have one back pocket with the Arcuate stitching design, a watch pocket, a cinch, suspender buttons & a rivet in the crotch. We don’t know the origin of the Arcuate stitching design. Stories about it representing the wingspread of a bird are myths; the loss of our records in 1906 makes it impossible to know why the stitching was first used. There may have been a tradition of pocket stitching on men’s workwear but this has not been found in any research done so far. The cinch & suspender buttons were standard on men’s pants. Keep in mind that we did not invent the cut or fit of the waist overalls; what we did was take traditional men’s work pants & rivet them, creating the new category of workwear which we today call blue jeans."
“History of Levis’® 501® Jeans.” Levi Strauss & Co. 12 April 2009 http://www.levistrauss.com/Downloads/history_of_levis_501_jeans.pdf.
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