History of the rivet
One of the most iconic features of a classic five pocket jean, is the rivet. First patented in 1873, rivets are still present today.
A frequent problem noted by the tailor, Jacob Davis, was that miners and workers were often tearing their pants while working. This was due to areas of weakness along seams, pocket corners and at the base of the crotch. To counteract, he decided to reinforce these stress areas with metal rivets. Created by hammering a washer onto a metal stud poking through the fabric.
This simple solution allowed better durability and quickly grew in popularity. To avoid competition he partnered with Levi Strauss, a fabric merchant, to patent his design. On May 20th 1873, Levis Strauss & Co received the patent and history was made.
The patent was held until 1890, and allowed Levi’s to be the sole maker of riveted denim workwear. This was the origin of the “XX” pant, later dubbed the 501.
Over the years the design has been refined, with some slight changes to positioning of the rivets. For example, the rivet at the base of the fly was removed in the 1930s. Believed to be due to cowboys over-heating their crotches when sat around a fire and scratching their saddles while riding.
Issues of scratching was also noted on the back pockets.
In 1937, due to customer feedback, Levis switched their back pocket rivets to concealed rivets in an attempt to be scratch-proof. The rivets were therefore sewn over, however over time it would still wear through the denim. Eventually this led to the removal of back pocket rivets in 1966.
Wrangler developed their own version of scratch-proof rivets. Unlike the typical rivet which is punched through the fabric from the inside and secured with a burr on the outside, their version had a flat front known as double cap rivets.
Bar tacks, a tight row of zig-zag stitching, were also used as an alternative to the use of rivets. An added benefit also being that this too was scratch-proof. Lee jeans created the most iconic use of the bar tack with the X-bar tack, reinforcing the pocket corners whilst also becoming part of their brand identity.
Rivets are now commonplace on jeans and a staple feature still used to this day.
