Riveted jeans by Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis
Vaqueros remachados de Levi Strauss y Jacob Davis
- Date
- 1873 · confidence high
- Place
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Credited to
- Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Work trousers of denim with copper rivets at pockets and stress points, patented on 20 May 1873 (US patent no. 139,121). It was the basis of today's jeans, a garment of universal use.
The rivet idea came from the tailor Jacob Davis of Reno, Nevada, who could not afford the patent and partnered with his fabric supplier, Levi Strauss. The name 'jeans' has an older and more diffuse origin.
What it led to
- durable workwear for miners, farmers and railwaymen
- jeans as an emblem of 20th-century youth culture
- global denim industry, the Levi's brand and its rivals