vintage clothing labels: Levi Strauss & CO

In 1847 Levi Strauss immigrated to the united states from the country of Bavaria. His family had dry goods business that he worked at in New York until 1853, at which time he left for the mighty Gold rush in California, but not to stake his claim in gold but to expand his families dry goods business. Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis of Nevada applied a patent for a design that Davis came up with for reinforcing pants. The design included placing metal rivets at stress points in the pants where the first signs of wear would occur. Davis was one of the merchants that Levi was supplied, and his design made the pants much stronger.

Levi Strauss made his first pants made by sewers in their homes, but by 1880 he started a factory to manufacture Jeans. The company was met with great success and they soon began designing models with a plethora of riveted pockets. One of their most famous pant models, known as the xx, was given its famous lot number 501 in 1890.

Levi Strauss died in 1902 and left the company to be run by his nephews. They rebuilt the company after the great fires after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and kept jobs for all their workers during the great depression in the 1930'3. In2002, Levi's announced that they would cease all US production of their jeans, ending what was probably the longest production of a product in the United States. All Levi's jeans, the all American garment, are now made overseas.

Images and Source Courtesy of http://us.levi.com/home/index.jsp

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