Riveted Blue Jeans

Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss, USA, patent 139,121 of 1873. Copper rivets that made work pants last.

Overview

Reno tailor Jacob Davis reinforced the pocket corners of work pants with copper rivets after a customer kept tearing them. Lacking the money to file a patent alone, he wrote to his cloth supplier Levi Strauss in San Francisco, and the two received the patent for an improvement in fastening pocket openings in May 1873. Strauss's company turned the riveted denim waist overall into the blue jean. When the patent expired in 1890, rivals flooded in, but the Levi's name and the 501 cut endured.