Items11The creator’s order
  1. 1Levi's 501Levi's 501Levi's XX waist overalls, 1873 The starting point for everything else here. Reno tailor Jacob Davis came up with copper rivets at the pocket corners, he and Levi Strauss applied for the patent together, and it was granted on May 20, 1873. The first waist overalls had one back pocket with the…0
  2. 2Lee 101Lee 101Lee 101 Cowboy Pants, mid-1920s Lee's answer to the riveted overall was a heavy 13-ounce jean built for riders and sold under lot number 101. Its lasting contribution is the zip fly: the 101Z, usually dated to 1926, is widely credited as the first jean with a zipper, nearly three decades before…0
  3. 3Lady Levi's 701Lady Levi's 701Lady Levi's, Lot 701, 1934 The first jeans Levi Strauss & Co. cut specifically for women, arriving when women were still expected to wear skirts and dresses. They were aimed at visitors to Western dude ranches, made of pre-shrunk denim with a fit drawn for women, and kept the button fly of the…0
  4. 4Levi's 501Levi's 501Levi's 501XX, the post-war pattern of about 1947 The version that settled the 501's details, and the one where dating clues pile up. Back-pocket rivets had been hidden under the pockets since 1937 after complaints about scratched saddles and furniture, and wartime rules had stripped the cinch and…0
  5. 5Wrangler 13MWZ Cowboy CutWrangler 13MWZ Cowboy CutWrangler 13MWZ Cowboy Cut, 1947 Built for rodeo riders rather than miners, and the details show it. Blue Bell, the company behind Wrangler, developed it with the Philadelphia tailor Rodeo Ben: flat copper rivets that would not rub a saddle, a higher back rise so a rider was not sitting on his…0
  6. 6Levi's 606 Super SlimsLevi's 606 Super SlimsLevi's 606 Super Slims, 1965 to 1972 The narrow, low-rise jean Levi's made for the youth and college buyers it was chasing in the 1960s. It began in the fall 1965 catalog as Lot 351, a "Super Slim, trim, masculine fit" in preshrunk heavyweight denim, gained "low rise styling" the next spring and…0
  7. 7Levi's 505Levi's 505Levi's 505, 1967 The preshrunk, zip-fly alternative to the 501 that rock and punk adopted as a uniform. Launched in 1967, it spared buyers the shrinking ritual of raw denim and the button fly in one go, and its advertising was where Levi's swapped the word "overalls" for "jeans." Levi Strauss &…0
  8. 8Levi Strauss & Co.Levi Strauss & Co.Levi's 517 Boot Cut, 1969 The jean that made room for boots without going all the way to a flare. Levi's introduced it in fall 1969 alongside the 646, as part of its experimental orange Tab line, and its catalogs described the Sta-Prest Saddleman 517 as "full from the knee for the boot wearer."…0
  9. 9Levi's 646 Bell BottomsLevi's 646 Bell BottomsLevi's 646 Bell Bottoms, 1969 Levi's turning a homemade trend into a product. Young buyers had been customizing their own jeans into flares, and by fall 1969 the company answered with the 646, first called "Nuvo Flares" and made of a poly-cotton blend, sold in the orange Tab line meant for fashion…0
  10. 10Gloria VanderbiltGloria VanderbiltBorn Feb 20, 1924Gloria Vanderbilt jeans by Murjani, 1976 The jeans that put a designer's name on the back pocket and turned denim into a status label. Vanderbilt teamed up with the manufacturer Mohan Murjani to launch the line in 1976, with her name embroidered on the back pocket and a white swan on the coin…0