Levi’s 501 – the oldest, best-known and most-worn jeans in the world
Levi Strauss, a native German from Buttenheim, was the son of a pedlar and followed the gold rush to California in the mid-19th century. In 1853, he founded the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale business and sold fabrics and haberdashery goods.
As a resourceful businessman, Levi Strauss noticed that the gold-diggers' trousers always tore in the same places. In 1873, he then developed and patented a process for reinforcing trousers in places which took a lot of strain with metal rivets.
First, he produced work trousers from brown tarpaulin. The discovery of robust cotton denim (from “Serge de Nîmes” = fabric from Nîmes) material was the moment jeans were created. Levi Strauss dyed the denim with indigo blue and began producing work trousers with great success. Soon, two factories in San Francisco were working at full capacity.
Since 1886, the “two horse brand” (the logo on which two horses attempt to rip a pair of Levi’s jeans in two) has stood for robust manufacturing. The batch number 501 was used for the San Francisco jeans for the first time around 1890. In order to stand out better from the competition and imitations, Levi’s 501 were furnished with the Red Tab fabric logo on the right jeans pocket from 1936 onwards. In 1943, the stitching on the trouser pockets was registered as a brand label. During the Second World War, Levi’s 501s were also produced for the American forces but without stitching on the pockets for reasons of economy.
With the Red Tab fabric logo and the stitched eagle’s wings on the back pockets, musicians and actors wore Levi’s 501 all over the world –jeans became well-known everywhere in the 1960s and Levi’s 501 became the most worn jeans in the world. In 1971, the lettering on the Red Tab flag was changed and written with just a large L (Levi’s). The big E became a small e. In the late 1980s, clever advertising concepts caused a veritable Levi’s 501 boom. Since then, it has been impossible to imagine a world without Levi’s 501.
In 2003, precisely 150 years after the company was founded, the cut of Levi‘s 501 jeans was revised. Today, Levi’s 501 offers everyone the option of dressing in their own favourite look – whether in the correct size or 1 - 2 sizes larger for a cool, laid-back style.