100. Levi's
Our uniform
Dear readers, we’ve reached number 100! It’s been a busy, fun spring. Thanks to everyone who’s reached out or commented. There are still 150 objects to go until the end of the year — please keep the ideas coming!
- Rainey
It’s the closest thing our species has to a uniform. No single garment, from a single identifiable origin point, made by a single brand, has ever in human history achieved the kind of global saturation of Levi’s jeans.
Levi’s has outlived empires, including the Ottoman, Qing, Austro-Hungarian, and USSR. Everyone—everyone—has worn them: gold miners, laborers, cowboys, farmers, bikers, beatniks, hippies, punks, rappers, presidents, popes, oligarchs, tech billionaires, and everyday people just scraping by. Every pair is the same, and yet no two are alike: they fade and mold to our bodies, recording the outline of wallets and phones, absorbing years of ordinary life. They become autobiography.
That’s the magic trick: a uniform usually signals conformity, but Levi’s became ubiquitous because they embody rebellion and individuality. We become more wholly ourselves when we slip a pair on.
When Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss, two Jewish immigrants working in the far west, filed their patent for copper rivets to reinforce work pants in 1873, women were still wearing hoop skirts and corsets. A tailor and a dry-goods merchant figured out how to reinforce tear points in workers’ pants, and inadvertently produced an icon. Today, the laborer’s uniform invented for the American frontier belongs to everybody, everywhere. More than running shoes, more than the Polo shirt, Levi’s jeans are America’s single greatest contribution to human costume.
Special thanks to everyone who suggested Levi’s.
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This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 words on 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. Through December 31, 2026.
I’m looking for ideas for this series — have something you’d like me to consider for inclusion? Please feel free to leave a comment!
After years of not having worn Levi's, I purchased a black pair and was amazed at how well they fit and made my middle-aged rear look!
Great! Levi's got me through girls' softball, sandlot football, fishing trips, barn dances...everywhere...except mother said no, to church! Still wear them when I garden! Thanks you.