From Workwear to Fashion

By the 1920s, Levi’s® waist overalls were the leading product in men’s work pants in the Western states. In the 1930s, Western movies as well as the West in general captured the American imagination. Authentic cowboys wearing Levi’s® jeans were elevated to mythic status. Western clothing became synonymous with a life of independence and
rugged individualism, symbolized by John Wayne, Gary Cooper and others.

(Waist overalls are not to be confused with bib overalls, which came into prominence during the Great Depression. Farmers, carpenters, railroad and factory workers adopted bib overalls as their uniform during this period, which became a symbol of America’s fighting spirit as the country struggled to rebuild itself after the devastating stock market crash of 1929.)

During World War II, American GIs took their favorite pairs of denim pants overseas, guarding them against the inevitable theft of valuable items. When the war was over, massive changes in society signaled the end of one era and the beginning of another. Denim pants became less associated with workwear and more associated with the leisure activities of prosperous post-war America.

Levi Strauss & Co. began selling its products nationally for the first time in the 1950s. Easterners and Midwesterners finally got their first chance to wear real Levi’s® jeans. By 1960, the company had changed the name of its most popular product. Until the 1950s, the famous copper riveted pants were referred to as “overalls.” When you went into a small clothing store and asked for a pair of overalls, you were given a pair of Levi’s® jeans. After World War II, however, Levi Strauss & Co.’s customer base changed dramatically from working adult men to leisure-loving teenage boys and their older college-age brothers who called the product “jeans.” By 1960, Levi Strauss & Co. decided that it was time to adopt the name, since these new, young consumers had adopted the product.


Denim Meets the 21st Century

American Fabrics magazine predicted back in 1969 that denim would become a fashion statement for many occasions when it said, “What has happened to denim in the last decade is really a capsule of what happened to America.
It has climbed the ladder of taste.”

Today, millions of people wear jeans to work, where the suit once ruled. Looking back, we know that the very first people to wear Levi’s® jeans worked with pick and shovel. Though our tools are now pencils, paper and computer keyboard, we have been moved to wear the same thing: denim jeans.

Born in Europe, denim’s function and adaptable form found a perfect home in untamed 19th Century America with the invention of jeans. Denim gives us a little bit of history every time we put it on.
©2002 Lynn Downey, Levi Strauss & Co. Historian, Levi Strauss & Co. Archives, San Francisco

Today, millions of people wear jeans to work, where the suit once ruled. Though our tools are now pencils, paper and computer keyboard, we have been moved to wear the same thing: denim jeans.