One on One with Lynn Downey, Curator of Levi’s Vault

a well-worn pair of jeans

On display in Levi’s recently opened museum, The Vault, is the oldest pair of Levi’s 501 jeans, a garment dating back to 1879—and worth a staggering $150,000. It’s artifacts like these that Downey, Levi’s in-house curator, is responsible for in her newly appointed post as curator of The Vault, a museum that houses 150 years worth of vintage apparel and ephemera.

The Vault, located in the levis jeans for men cheap Strauss Headquarters in San Francisco, showcases Levi’s fashion evolution and its intersection with culture from its inception. As quirky and fun-spirited as the city of San Francisco itself, The Vault houses all things Levi’s–rivets, vintage buttons, historic photographs, notable billboards and of course, jeans.

The Vault is also home to iconic clothing from some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. One of the most captivating features of The Vault is a conveyer-belt display set inside a viewing window, showcasing Levi’s Trucker Jackets designed by celebrities and winners of levies jeans for men sale design contests. Jackets designed for celebrities including Elton John, Queen Latifah, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga are also on display.

Personally committed to preserving the past, Downey is very much in tune with the brand’s significance in the city, including the brand’s historic connection to San Francisco.

“levis jeans for women cheap Strauss was a Bavarian immigrant and dry goods distributor and wholesaler who came to San Francisco in 1853,” Downey said. “In the early 1870s, a Reno, Nev. tailor named Jacob Davis was making men’s pants reinforced with metal rivets and needed a business partner to manufacture and market the new pants. So he and Levi Strauss got together and received a U.S. patent on the process of making men’s denim work pants with copper rivets. Men had worn denim pants as workwear for decades, but when Levi’s made the first riveted denim pants, that was the beginning of the blue jean.” And thus, perhaps the most enduringly popular item in fashion’s history was created.

While jeans’ popularity hasn’t waned, their role in a wardrobe certainly has, according to Downey.

“People today expect more from jeans,” she said. “They expect jeans to fill a much larger role in their wardrobe. In the beginning, jeans had one function only.” That was, to say, the function of appropriate, durable workwear for the working people of San Francisco.

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