His name was Homer, Homer Campbell, and he was a miner. Picking up rocks in the bowels of Wickenburg, Arizona, six days a week to see what workwear would endure so much work. For three long years his Levi’s 501s lasted, repaired, patched, tied with laces when buttons weren’t handy, until he decided they weren’t enough. “They fall off in chunks,” he complains in the letter that he sent back with the trousers to the headquarters of Levi Strauss & Co. by post in 1920. Of course he wanted to send him another pair, new, on the front, as guaranteed by the company’s advertising slogan at the time. Homer got away with it, but so did Levi’s: one look was enough to see, no, these dusty jeans didn’t crumble in your hands, they were in relatively good condition; what didn’t resist were the tinkering and additional parts added by its owner. The brand wanted to preserve the garment, which was shown at trade shows and various events (it received an award in 1955 at the opening of Disneyland, California, which stands out among the attractions of the Wild West), as a testament to the exceptional strength of its product . . Durability was this.
These 501 today occupy one of the display cases in Levi’s archive room, which summarizes the history of the flag at its San Francisco headquarters, not only as a testament to its resistance to the passage of time, but also as a testament to its times. Homer, they are affectionately named in memory of the shoemaker and protesting miner. “One of our mottos is ‘Live your Levi’s’, which sounds like a marketing word, but its certainty is based on the fact that these are garments that will last forever, that will grow old with you. And it’s not often that a brand resonates with people’s lives like this,” says Tracey Panek, who is currently responsible for preserving and expanding a legacy that goes beyond the label itself. Because the story of Levi’s is also that of the generations of users who feel like their own. They say: A pair of jeans is able to tell the existential adventures of its wearer, their way of life, their work, even their size and what they once carried in their pockets. When it comes to 501 then there is no biography that can resist them, anonymous or famous. For 150 years now.
Two young people, in Paris, in the post-war period, with their 501st Levi’s Archive
The bestseller of jeans, the big blue, doesn’t exactly have legendary origins, although a century and a half of permanence with its patina of cultural relevance give it no little epic. In the beginning it was about rivets, some copper reinforcements in certain strategic points (the corners of the pockets, the bottom of the fly) to avoid tears in the usual cotton fabric in the manufacture of workwear, especially the overtrousers (overalls, in English), which the miners wore over their vacation suits so as not to spoil them. It was a stroke of genius for Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, in neighboring Nevada, who came up with the idea of using the rivets from riding blanket fastening straps to reinforce the pants of a customer ordered for her husband, a rough-and-tumble lumberjack. Instant success, so much so that he soon ran out of breath. “They have become so popular that I can’t keep up with the demand fast enough. My competitors are jealous and unless I patent them they will all copy them,” he wrote in July 1872 to Levi Strauss, his textile supplier in San Francisco. And he offered him half of the invention if he agreed to support and sign the protocol. To convince him, she sent him two samples: some in the signature white canvas and others in the uniform cotton twill, French-style dyed indigo blue (hence the name denim, a contraction of “from Nimes”). There is no doubt: the invention was officially patented in May 1873. And Levi Strauss & Co. became its sole producer.
Initially marked with a double X as noted on the delivery slips, it soon became known as 501, the model’s batch number. This is how it went down in history: the blue jeans par excellence, the garment that made the world uniform. “It’s possible to relate to and explain society over the last 150 years by observing the development of the Levi’s 501,” says Panek, referring to its inclusion in Items: Is Fashion Modern? Head. That its creators were a couple of Jewish immigrants – Davis, a native of Latvia, and Strauss, a German from Bavaria – now takes on a deeper meaning. “It seems to me more important than ever to point this out, although it’s still part of the proverbial American narrative, the myth of the American dream: Anyone can reinvent themselves and thrive in this country. Strauss would be surprised to learn that the product she grew up with here after leaving Germany can now be bought in her hometown, which is also a very American story,” continues the historian, who is herself of New Zealand origin .
Advert for glasnost-era jeans mocking the red label 501 Levi’s Archive
A true Indiana Jones of fashion, Panek relentlessly seeks out any product evidence that helps complete the brand’s narrative, taught in California elementary schools as part of what it meant during the post-Civil War Gold Rush: “Here on the West Coast go.” I tour ghost towns, mines and caves because that’s where the miners wore the original 501. They just told me they found a load of rivets in a town in Utah.” The tips on social media now make it easier for him to ” People who are passionate about the brand, fans who send us their clothes full of personal stories,” he says, showing a pair of 501s customized with embroidery, patches and graffiti, a memento of a user’s hippie era. His favorites, by the way the Calico jeans, circa 501 from 1890—the oldest in the house—discovered in an abandoned mine by Barbara Hunter in the 1940s ecked, who had no qualms wearing them before her student days brought them back to the Levi’s archive, which also houses those once worn by Patti Smith and Steve Jobs. Or those born from collaborations with designers and exclusive prêt-à-porter companies, from Yves Saint Laurent to Vetements. The King of Cowboys’ reach is easy to understand, despite its conflicting duality: symbol of equality but also of capitalism, embodiment of freedom in Western popular culture and bargaining chip in many countries where the sale was banned. For that reason itself, a glorifier of the Youth while preaching the benefits of aging, ubiquitous and global at the same time as a mirror of individuality. “There is far more power in rock ‘n’ roll and blue jeans than in the entire Soviet army,” wrote French philosopher Régis Debray.
Levi’s advert during World War II encouraging purchase of War Bonds. Levi’s archive
The finds of the archive manager, on the other hand, serve to inspire the creative teams. Paul O’Neill, design director of the brand’s collections, constantly turns to her to study the weight of denim at a given point in time, to check some kind of seam, or to review old elements like suspender buttons. “Actually, the 501 has long since reached the end of its evolution, it’s already jeans perfection,” he admits. “There is no need to change it, let’s not even say to adapt it to our time, that is the context in which it is used. Working with a product like this is a privilege,” he continues while recalling the features of the model: buttoned fly, straight leg, designed to adapt to the body as it shrinks after the first wash ( the shrink-to-fit thing: pull it on and go wet with it in the bath or shower). To mark the 150th anniversary, O’Neill has recreated the original 501, the 1873 (sold in a limited edition with a facsimile of the patent) and several later versions between 1890 and 1937. The novelty lies in the 501 of the season, that of the Spring/Summer 2023 collection, made of sustainable fabric, bill and production. A commitment from Paul Dillinger, Levi’s global vice president of innovation, who has spent a long decade experimenting to find the right circular solution. “With a pair of jeans like the 501, the only reason to innovate is to come up with an idea that improves it, but without anyone objecting, without disappointing the fan base,” he explains. “Precisely for this reason, it took us almost 12 years to find the hemp fiber, whose cultivation is much less invasive than cotton, more resistant, the best natural dyeing process, the production system that uses less water … That’s right The most sustainable jeans are the that you already have in your closet but I can help you make them last forever if you want new ones. Hence our latest motto: “Buy better, use longer”.