Rivets: What are they and why jeans contain them

Rivets are small, but symbolic metal parts found on jeans.

Their original purpose was to strengthen parts that could easily tear. Today, they mainly serve a decorative purpose.

Rivets are attached by pressing or hammering a "disc" or "plate" onto a metal pin that pierces through the denim.

And it was the riveting of workwear trousers, invented by Jacob Davis and patented by Levi Strauss & Co. in 1873, that started the legend and gave blue jeans their iconic and enduring status.

Riveted denim

One of the most common problems that wearers of jeans had been that the pocket corners and other stress points would wear and tear prematurely.

In 1871, in January, a tailor named Jacob W. Davis, who lived in Reno, Nevada, began hammering copper rivets into the places where his customers' trousers often tore: the pocket corners and the bottom of the fly.

This was the invention of riveted blue jeans, and rivets are still one of the most important features of the jeans we wear today.

The rivet was a simple, durable and elegant solution to a pressing need for durability. It prevented pockets and seams from bursting when miners and workers wore their trousers for hard work.

The rivet also distinguished Davis' trousers from those of his competitors, making them an instant success. This meant that competitors soon began to imitate his design.

Davis was aware that he needed to copyright his design, but he didn't have the $68 to spend on the patent.

In 1872, he became a partner with one of his fabric suppliers, Levi Strauss of San Francisco. Strauss paid for the patent while Davis moved to San Francisco to oversee production.

On 20 May 1873, Levi Strauss & Co. was granted a patent for the manufacture of riveted denim workwear, and under US patent law at the time, the company held the patent until 1890.

This gave the company a head start and created the competitive and first-mover advantage from which it still benefits today.

During those 17 years, Levi's was the only manufacturer allowed to produce workwear with rivets, and the company fought back with lawsuits against patent infringement. Several competitors brought alternative reinforcement designs to the market. But none of them was as simple and elegant as the copper rivet.

As the patent expired in 1890, rivets were a standard feature of every pair of jeans.

At this point, Levi's began to market its claim to the invention. In the following decades, the San Francisco-based jeans manufacturer trademarked a number of design features of its jeans, including the two-horse label (1886), the name "Levi's" and the guaranteed ticket (1928), the red tab (1936) and the bow (1943).

Even though some jeans don't have rivets at all - and even if most jean wearers in the 21st century don't actually need the durability of rivets - they are still there because they have become one of the essential jeans design features.