I had to work for
everything I ever got. I never had nothing given to me; that keeps you moving
all the time. If you just go
somewhere and sit down, you're not going
to last long. You'll just fade away. [music] (Narrator) California in 1873, miners needed tough pants to withstand the wear
and tear of the mine. A Bavarian dry goods salesman
named Levi Strauss and a tailor named Jacob Davis,
were granted a patent to put rivets on pants
at points of strain. It was a simple idea
for a simple product. The American blue jean,
the Levi's 501. In 1915, Strauss partnered
with Cone denim, a fabric mill in North Carolina. The golden handshake was
a gentleman's agreement to make Levi's denim
there, forever. It's been one hundred years. The same cherry wood floors offer a certain give to
the draper loom's bounce, for perfect imperfections. A distinct looking denim
that defines the 501. Well this plant here,
I have been working for, going on 20 years. I'm a head overhauler
for the dye house. They're not a new
piece of equipment. It's an old piece
of equipment. You got to have
tender-loving care with them. Yeah, we're brothers. Yeah, we're both loom fixers. The wooden floor serves as
the purpose of rockin' the loom. Ridin' in the boat,
up and down motion. Yeah, I mean it
sounds like clapping. I actually used to make a
loom doll that would dance. I used to pump gas on
the corner up yonder, and I came down here
and applied for a job and I've been here for 48 years. I've actually worked here
for 58 and a half years. Over 20 years. 33 years. You drink the water in here, you get the lint down the crack
of your back, you stay. (Narrator) Since 1927, Levi's and Cone
have put a red thread along the seam of selvedge 501s. It signified Levi's quality and is now known
as red line selvedge. They are called Shrink-To-Fit. Moisture shrinks the jeans more
in the legs than in the waist. Everywhere you need them to
shrink and nowhere you don't. So they mold to your body
like no other fabric. With the 501 you have character
in each yard of fabric. The color, the construction. We have to go back to the
past to make it the same. Levi Strauss believed
in doing the right thing and that was reflected in making blue jeans out
of the most durable material and it's carried through
right to this day. (Narrator) Denim shows how
a person wears their jeans. The way they move,
even where they've been. Denim shows the work we do. I'm Russ Miller. This is Mike Harris,
my son-in-law. We're out here in
the Western desert and we're looking for evidence
of old Western workwear. Mike and I go into old
abandoned mines in the West to find denim overalls
from the 1800s. It's kind of like,
called archaeology I guess. Miners repurposed their jeans. When they were worn out, we found them wrapped
around steam pipes. We even think they stemmed
dynamite holes with denim also. These are 501s
between 1893 and '96 that we found
right up in the mine. Miner jeans, typically, you're going see some
wax spattering right here and you tend get this kind
of high whiskering right here. Since most people were right
handed they sat on this. They were looking for silver
and they didn't find any. But they did leave some stuff
that's worth a lot to us. (Narrator) The 501 began
its life serving miners, farmers, laborers, ranchers, all the way to factory
and construction workers. As American industry evolved,
so did the 501. It changed, as work changed. Today, the 501 continues
to serve all sorts of workers, for all sorts of work. Yeah, I'd say I know
what hard work is. If I tell B-Rad I'm going to
come help you load bulls today, well I'm going to go
help him load bulls. I mean I work 12-hour days. I don't really want to get up
and feed at 5 in the morning, but I do. It's a cool feeling to
build a bike yourself. You put it together
from nothing. It's an inanimate
bunch of parts and then all of a
sudden it starts and you're riding it around. I have burn marks
on all my jeans in the inside of my
right leg from my exhaust. Most guys who
work on their bikes get so greasy
and oily and dirty, but then they look way better. The best processes have
stood the test of time. Cast bronze, glass blowing,
and stone, still hold their own. If you're willing to do what it
takes to make the work yourself, you have more love
for what it is you just made. I come from the DIY music ethic. Basically do it yourself. You want to make a magazine?
Do it! Want to make a record?
Do it! No one wants your culture,
no one wants your dumb band, everyone hates you, and you're going to have
to do all of it yourself. Mailing lists:
nine hours; do it. Band practice:
six hours; do it. I haven't slept yet. Here's some coffee.
Cheer up! Art was work. Art was more work than the work
you punch the time clock for. Me?
I just destroyed jeans. I'm not trying to look good,
I'm trying to get to work. [singing] It catches the water
that runs off the house and it ain't much to look at,
sitting down on the ground. All rusty and worn
from the strength of the rain, but it will water the flowers
that bloom in the spring. Hard works hurts nobody. It's what keeps
you going, really. It started out being
purely functional. That thing became
a style leader. I guess it's very American. We are the people
who always head west and make something
out of nothing. This one item of clothing has transitioned through all
those times and found its place. [music] I feasted on cowboy films, images of cowboy stars
wearing jeans. I mean, one went with
the other. I did grow up in Texas. And cowboys, you don't want to
take them home to mom and dad, but you certainly wanted to be
on the dance floor with them. My fantasy was to be a cowboy. Levi's were a part of
having a cowboy outfit. In the movies,
they all wore jeans. Can you imagine John Wayne
in baggy jeans? It wouldn't work. I don't know how they got
stylish in the general public, but somehow they did. (Narrator) The Western films
of the '30s meant the whole country wanted
a piece of the cowboy lifestyle. For the first time, folks were
wearing 501s for its look. Nonetheless, function always
informed its evolving design. They're a representation
of every period in the same way a
good piece of design is. If you see an Eames chair in the
middle of a bunch of garbage, you go directly towards it
and Levi's are that way too. It's perfect design. All of these evolutions and changes were because there
was a specific need, or because it functioned better. Form fixed function so
if you build it to last, the fashion comes second. All classics were
born out of utility. It comes from people who
needed to work in them, and I think that story makes me feel like I'm
not buying into something that is a statement. It works, it's not trying
to communicate, really anything. It is made of four pieces
of fabric essentially, because if there was more,
there would be more seams and it would be able
to rip in more places. I don't want anything around me, even a pencil or anything
that's not well designed. A 501 jean is as plain
as a glass of water. (Narrator) In 1934,
the first women's jeans appear. Lady Levi's are in
Vogue magazine a year later. They had come a long way
from the mine. By the '50s, Hollywood stars had elevated
this humble utilitarian garment to a newfound glamorous status. The 501 became a fashion icon. Maybe the sexiness of
a woman wearing jeans is the idea of playing with
masculinity and femininity. If you put an incredible beauty
like Marilyn Monroe in Levi's and some rugged look, just shows how beautiful and
feminine and sexy they are. You have James Dean and you have
everybody in the 50s is like, man, wearing jeans
means you're cool and you're a rebel! It's sort of against the law
to just be the chick that's just happy
with wearing jeans and a t-shirt. That's what society
was telling women that they wanted
us to look like. And women kind of said,
wait a minute. No! My butt looks amazing in these,
so I'm going to do this instead. These are 501s and they're a
good place to keep my hands. I am wearing a
short man's jeans. I like to see my boots. These are the 1955. They're just rock and roll. I've been street racing
with my Camaro. A good set of cowboy boots,
Levi's 501s, white shirt, or like today,
a red shirt. As I've gotten older I like
them a little bit higher. How it's tapered,
if it's cropped, if they cut it,
if it's with a wing tip, if it's with a perfect cuff. It was a whole math
part of buying the jeans. Your inseam
should be two inches, and your waist
should be three inches, and then they're
going to shrink, and then they become perfect. When I saw this, I was just
really, really happy. It's air-conditioned. Good for riding a bike. The wind blows right up it! The cool thing with Levi's is
they're easy to manipulate, tweak, reconstruct,
rework, reinterpret. I rolled them in the dark. It's a bit indecent... I'm a 501 guy
for 20 plus years. You either had to wear women's
jeans or I would get 501s and then sew them up. I would taper the ankles
and just be moshing with 50 sweaty boys plus me. You know, if your grandmother
sews your ripped crotch or ripped knee with a
little strawberry patch, that's yours. I never had that done. Some girls would wear out
two little holes on their little butt cheek. What a lot of people want to
say when they're wearing 501s is that, I'm almost above trend. Yeah, it's kind got a few holes. I've had these for like,
a hundred years. 501s, penny loafers,
and the white Beefy-T t-shirt. It attracted the girls. Let's be honest. My mom was always, "You have to wash it,
that's dirty." But I was like, "No,
I like the jeans crispy. I like money crispy,
and I like my jeans crispy." I saw a Levi's ad
on the big screen. "It's in my mind
and in my soul. "It's in my generation. "You gotta leave it alive
and walk it alive "and live in jubilation. I said Levi's, Levi's,
you gotta walk in the Levi's." [Music] I excommunicated myself. I dropped out
and went elsewhere. Well, that looks pretty rough. Yeah, but at least it's freedom. [music] (Narrator) GI's returned
from World War II with mechanical skills
and shell shock. Biker clubs replaced
the brotherhood and adrenaline they'd got
used to in the military. These are people that
are in a tour of duty. They're actually in combat. What happens is naturally
you begin to form bonds through a military system
that outlasts that system. Your guy who you're
in the fox hole with who can rekindle that
or recreate that, in a system like a bike club. I've been riding since 1941. This jacket,
I got it back in '65 because I was in
the Hell's Angels. Well we wore Levi's.
They had to be tough. Just like women,
you never give up on them! (Narrator) Bikers had a look:
A Levi's trucker jacket and 501s could withstand the wind, rain, and whatever else
the road dealt. It was also a canvas to
show their affiliations. If you're rocking a Harley of course you're going
to have on a pair of salty old crazy Levi's
you got caught in the rain. And the more you wore them,
the cooler they get. (Narrator) In the '50s, young farm workers,
turned rockers, wore their 501s on stage. This juvenile delinquent style
led to Levi's being banned in many schools outright. "Troubled kids headed for trouble, with destruction and violence
their only outlet." (Narrator): In 1960 Levi's
officially adopted the term jeans, the slang term
used by teenagers. Levi's became a
rock and roll go-to. People dressed up
to get on stage and all of sudden you were like, here you are in
the same denims that you were digging your
ditches in yesterday. It's almost like a punk move, when rock music
kind of came to the fore. It had a lot to do with honesty. I think people saw wearing
denim on stage as kind of a
symbol of that. Punk rock to me was
jeans, t-shirt, boots. And I had a length
of chain for a belt. Because I had to take it off
and brandish it as a weapon. I'm no tough guy,
trust me. I'm very proud of
all my record covers. I have some clinkers, but I'm not going to
tell you which ones. This is Neil Young,
this is After the Gold Rush. They're patched,
which was the style. I mean look at
the jean guys, man. Everybody in this photograph
are wearing jeans except the manager
and the record producer. Make of that what you will. It was and still is the
garment of the outlaw, the rock and roller, the biker,
the punk rocker, and a lot of other cultures that might not be allowed
into the White House for dinner. (Narrator) In the '60s, intellectuals and artists
adopted 501s, too. Crowds wore them through
decades of activist movements. From beats to hippies,
to LGBTQ rights, to the fall of the Berlin wall. It was a whole period
about saying no and rebelling against things. I've always had a sense
of humor about rules. Wearing Levi's was
an act of rebellion. I was a photographer and I did a book on gay fashion
from the '70s. The 501s in this culture
communicated gayness. There's all these other signifiers:
you could add keys, you could have handkerchiefs,
put leather chaps over them. Some people would use sandpaper on their jeans in
the crotch area. I got my first pair of 501 blues
when I was twelve. I saved up my birthday money. I got a size 40,
although I was a size 28 waist. 501s, it was synonymous with
skateboarding at the time. I fancied myself as a
skinhead or rude boy, definitely a rockabilly. I wrote graffiti,
hip hop culture; the 501 just fit any of them. Mods and rockers,
Beatle freaks, punks, and skunks,
and cooks and geeks, which pretty much
sums up Levi's. Emulating Patti Smith
and The Ramones and people who were living
like paupers in New York City. I inherited a pair
when I was a kid. My brother was a suedehead. That was like a two or
number three skin head. The uniform was
Doc Martens and 501s. I had to hide them. I was on my way
to rabbinical school and I wasn't supposed
to be packing jeans with me. And they weren't necessarily
wearing them for any other reason
than they found them, or some chick stole
her boyfriend's pants. The 501s are the
Australopithecus of cool jeans. I've been through a lot of
different scenes over the time and seeing things in life
repeat themselves. I can remember a lot
of different periods in a long life. Times change right? But it stays the same. We are pretty simple creatures.
