The iconic Levi’s model is 150 years old: from gold rush to indispensable fashion garment, here are 10 interesting facts about the world’s most famous denim that you may not yet know!
To understand the history of the 501, one need only think that it came into being in the late 19th Century to facilitate the travel of Gold seekers, who had to spend hours and hours in the open air, even in extreme weather conditions, and needed trousers that were tough and particularly durable.
Levi Strauss, a fabric merchant from the American West Coast who sold denim cloth, collaborated with and Jacob Davis, a tailor from Nevada, who came up with the idea of transforming those fabrics into trousers, reinforcing the pockets and the flap with copper rivets, to make them three times more resistant than all other products on the market. Thus on 20 May 1873, the Levi’s 501 was born: a jeans that everyone from gold diggers to Hollywood stars will wear.