Levi’s Vintage Clothing digs into the archives to resurrect a transitional jean that saved saddles from scratches and introduced the Red Tab.
Summary
- The Release: Levi’s Vintage Clothing is digging into its own history to release a highly specific reproduction via an exclusive lottery system.
- The Inspiration: The design team pulled directly from the 1937 transition era, a time when the brand modified its hardware to protect furniture and saddles from scratching.
- The Product: The drop consists of the 1937 501® Original Fit Selvedge Men’s Jeans, featuring a high-rise “anti-fit,” a cinch back, the newly introduced Red Tab, and a salmon-colored pocket flasher.
You might not think about your sofa when you pull on a pair of stiff denim, but in the late thirties, furniture preservation drove design innovation. Levi’s Vintage Clothing is bringing back the 1937 501® Original Fit Selvedge, a pair of jeans born from a very specific problem: exposed copper rivets were scratching up saddles, chairs, and car seats. To fix this, the brand moved those rivets underneath the denim on the back pockets, securing the stress points without destroying the upholstery.
Upholstery safety was a hard sell to cowboys and workers who trusted seeing the metal, so the brand developed a warm salmon-colored pocket flasher to ease their minds. This piece of paper history returns on the new reproduction, complete with a giant arrow pointing to the pocket corner and the slogan “The Rivet’s Still There”. It was a necessary bit of visual proof that the jeans hadn’t gone soft just because they stopped scratching the leather.
Scratching the leather wasn’t the only concern; standing out in a crowded market was the other main priority of the era. The 1937 model flaunts the Red Tab, a detail introduced just a year prior in 1936 to make sure everyone knew you were wearing the real deal amidst a flood of competitors. This version sits high on the waist and hangs with a relaxed, straight “anti-fit” that feels distinct from the slimmer cuts of later decades.
Decades of design tweaks led to the 1937’s unique transitional hardware setup, which retains the old-school cinch back but finally abandons the buttons for suspenders. It is a rare hybrid of the Depression-era workwear aesthetic and the modern five-pocket jean, and you can try your luck at securing a pair through the brand’s exclusive lottery system.
