Levi’s Vintage Clothing Reproduces Its Oldest Archival Jean
Levi’s Vintage Clothing released the 9Rivet, a reproduction of the oldest pair of jeans in the Levi’s archive.
While Levi’s had been producing what is now known as the 501 jean since 1873, the style’s 150th anniversary last year gave the brand’s designers the opportunity to dive into the Levi’s archive. It also struck up more questions about the significance of the garments and which could be the oldest.
More from Sourcing Journal
This led Paul O’Neill, Levi’s Vintage Clothing design director, to a jean made with only nine rivets. Most jeans in the archive have a minimum of 11 rivets. He also identified multiple pieces from the 1870s with back patches that mentioned a re-patent date of March 16, 1875. The nine-riveted jean’s patch was too distressed to read, however.
Levi Strauss & Co.’s historian, Tracey Panek, visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. to see a pair of Levi’s riveted duck waist overalls that Levi Strauss donated in 1964 when the museum opened. She found that it had an intact back patch also omitting that 1875 date, indicating that it had been produced before the 1875 re-patent. Several pieces with this same patch in the Levi’s archive could then definitively be dated to pre-1875.
With this new knowledge, and after meticulously comparing all details of the garments from this period including pocket stitching, pocket fabric, buttons, and more, Panek and the Levi’s Vintage Clothing design team could confidently say that 9Rivet pre-dated all other blue jeans in the archive. Levi’s estimates that the jean is from 1873 or 1874.
To celebrate the jean’s unique designation, the Levi’s Vintage Clothing team has made 800 pairs of stitch-for-stich reproductions of the jean. Made with 9 oz. plain selvedge denim from Cone’s shuttered White Oak Denim mill, the 9Rivet has one back pocket, exposed rivets and an unriveted center-back cinch. Other noteable details are its denim pocket bags, sewn-on buttons, a watch pocket sewn on the waistband and the pre-1875 Levi’s leather patch.
The limited-edition jean is available now on Levi’s website and app and in select Levi’s stores. It retails for $495 and comes in a commemorative box.
“Of the various 1870s blue jeans in the Levi’s archives, I always suspected 9Rivet was the oldest,” O’Neill said. “After confirming it was in fact the oldest we have, we were thrilled to reproduce all of its quirks and details that collectively capture a unique piece of denim history.”
