The fascinating history of Levi Jeans
Levis’ origin doesn’t actually start with Leob Strauss, yes, that’s Leob, who later changed his name to Levi. This fascinating story begins with his partner Jacob Davis. Leob was a dry goods merchant in San Francisco. Davis was a clothing manufacturer who bought his supplies from Leob. Davis approached Strauss in 1872 with a new idea to make the work trousers known as coveralls much more durable. Davis was responding to complaints from miners that his clothing did not last long in the harsh working conditions. The seams on his pockets and the buttons that fastened the waist and fly broke too easily.
In 1871 Davis attempted to use copper rivets to reinforce the seams. With rivets he could also join layers of thicker material. His new tough and durable work pants became an instant hit not only with miners, but with other “American frontier working men” such as farm laborers and cattle herders. The small copper rivet revolutionized work clothes.
In 1872, Davis agreed to partner with Strauss in exchange for Strauss funding a patent application on the rivet idea.
In 1873, with the approval of the patent, Davis and Strauss immediately began mass-producing their work trousers. They formed Levi Strauss & Company. “LS&CO” was engraved on each copper rivet. This still appears on Levi’s rivets to this day.
Levi Strauss & Company purchased its cotton denim fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was the more durable line of cloth known as “XX”. This became the name of the first style of Levi’s jeans. It was also a very inexpensive fabric, as the indigo blue dye came from a plant grown and processed by slave labor in India, and the cotton was mass-produced on plantations in the south. Within a matter of years, this plant-based dye from India would be replaced by an even cheaper synthetic dye newly invented in Germany and mass-produced by the BASF corporation.
The next innovation in jeans appeared in 1886 when Levis began to be manufactured with a distinctive leather patch on the back waistband of the jeans. The first image or logo was a pair of jeans thrown between two horses without tearing. This leather logo patch on the back waistband of a pair of jeans is now a common feature of almost all jean manufacturers to this day.
These early jeans were originally called “waist overalls.” They had two front and one back pockets along with an additional small “watch pocket” sewn inside one of the front pockets, a feature still seen on jeans today. They also had a strap and buckle at the back of the waistband that acted as a belt to hold the pants securely at the waist. And finally they also had rivets on the waistband to hold the suspenders.
Another distinction of Levi jeans is the bowtie stitch design seen on the back pockets of virtually all Levi jeans to this day. It’s called an “arched” stitch design. It is believed to have held the cotton pocket liners in place in the early manufacturing process. But no one knows for sure since all records were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
During World War II thread was rationed and thus this unnecessary stitch was discarded. However, it was so popular that the design was painted on the back pockets. Rare specimens of these jeans sell for tens of thousands of dollars today!
Since then, Levi Strauss & Co. has trademarked many jean styles: skinny, tapered, bootcut, relaxed, skinny, and two-way stretch, to name a few. Currently there are 15 styles. As each patent expired, other manufacturers quickly copied the designs. However, Levi Strauss & Co. remains the world leader in the manufacture and sale of jeans.
Today, Levi Strauss & Co. together with Gap Jeans are leading another major challenge in the apparel industry. These two jean manufacturers are leaders in their industry in advocating for workers’ rights, higher wages and an end to child labor, according to watchdog organization Free2Work.org. You can support these efforts by only purchasing jeans from manufacturers highly rated by this organization.
Credit for the information in this article goes to “Denim” by Birgit Lohmann, Levi.com and Free2Work.org.