By Steve Lee
In the 1950’s Levi’s 501 denim jeans were not sold in mom’s favorite
department store but
were available in stores with large sporting goods departments that
catered to male shoppers.
Levi’s were the choice of construction workers and telephone linemen
for their fit and
legendary durability.
The selection of colors to choose from, you could have any color you
desired as long as it was
indigo. The multitude of sizes was necessary because the
“shrink-to-fit” formula required some
arcane calculations to take home the correct size- Levi’s could
continue to shrink even after
the first machine-washing. The advice of an experienced Levi’s wearer
was a big help to the
first time buyer.
I liked the look of the dark-blue welt against the light blue of the
inside-out cuffed denim but
was advised that plain-leg (no cuff) was the way to go, especially
with the Justin cowboy boots
we were wearing. (This was on the cusp of the end-of-the-cuff era that
cyclically may be
turning back to cuffs now.)
A friend of mine who wore his newest pair of Levi’s in his neighbor’s
pool accomplished the
ultimate in shrink-to-fit. The pool had just been chlorinated which
had a slight bleaching effect
as he lay in the hot sun on the lawn, turning so the jeans would dry
evenly. This was the
predecessor of the “Stonewashed” multiple gradations of dark-to-light
that were to be made
available to Levites in the future decades.
Levi Strauss patented the “Authentic Riveted Clothing” on May 20, 1873
as part of his efforts to
improve the wear-and-tear ability of his namesake jeans. The rivets
were struck at the corners
of the pockets, attachment points that experience had proven were the
source of customer
complaints.
Keeping in mind that Levi Strauss had originally supplied
California’s Gold Rush
miners with pants that he made from the discarded canvass sails of the
“Round the Horn”
Clipper Ships that sailed from Europe to San Francisco. While doing
this he also developed
the “continuous product improvement” that is in vogue in today’s
“paradigm speak” of the
management consultants.
One side effect of the rivets; a group of us had gone to a High School
Homecoming rally on a
crispy fall night. The culmination of this highpoint of the school
year was a bonfire that
consumed the city’s park tree-branch-trimmings and various school-desk
shipping crates.
Since the wood was very dry, the fire gave off a lot of heat and
light, and very little smoke so
you could get up really close to it. As the night went on the
temperature continued to drop so it
was comfortable just wearing a t-shirt without a jacket close to the
fire.
Suddenly I felt a sharp pain, a burning sensation in the lowest part
of my back all across the
area right under the belt loops. My friends were looking at the
contorted look on my face as
jumped around trying to get some space between the jeans and my skin
without taking them
off altogether. Keeping more distance from the fire eliminated the
effect of the infrared
radiation on the highly heat conductive copper rivets.
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