The Real Reason Levi’s Jackets Have 2 Lines On The Front.

Summary

This video explores the history and evolution of Levi’s denim jackets, specifically investigating why the iconic Type III jacket features two decorative seam lines on the front and back. Michael examines over $5,000 worth of vintage denim jackets to trace the design evolution from workwear to fashion.

The video reveals that the answer lies with Lee Denim, who released their 101-J jacket with similar slimming seams 14 years before Levi’s Type III. The video traces Levi’s journey from a pure workwear brand through three jacket iterations (Type I, Type II, Type III), showing how each design reflected the company’s struggle between maintaining workwear functionality and embracing fashion trends driven by America’s fascination with Western culture.

Michael also promotes his own Iron Snail clothing line, including the Prologue V2 denim jacket and Chapter 1 jeans, while providing a comprehensive history of denim from ancient indigo dyes to the invention of riveted jeans by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss.

Highlights

”Lee Denim is the Answer”

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“Lee denim is the answer as to why the type 3 Levi’s denim jacket and all the type 3s after that for many different brands have those two lines in the front and two lines in the back.” — Michael, 2:25

”Indigo is 6,000 Years Old”

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“Indigo is like a core thing of humanity as we know it. The oldest sample we have is 6,000 years old, more likely it was used up to 10,000 years ago.” — Michael, 4:52

”The Type 2 Is Levi’s Indecision”

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“The Type 2 or the 507XX is kind of the pinnacle of Levi’s indecision on if they want to be a workwear brand or if they want to be a fashion brand.” — Michael, 11:24

”There Is No Type Four - Star Wars Changed Everything”

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“There is no type four. After a virtually 70-year streak of uninterrupted smash hit western films, Hollywood is rocked by a little film called Star Wars.” — Michael, 14:15

”The Toy Story Documentary”

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“There’s actually a very popular documentary about the shift from Western culture to space culture and how people got obsessed with it. The documentary is called Toy Story.” — Michael, 14:52

Key Points

• The Mystery Question (0:22) - Denim jackets have two lines on either side, but their purpose wasn’t obvious even to the host
• Type III Introduction (0:42) - The lines didn’t appear until 1962 and are now ubiquitous with the modern denim jacket
• Initial Theories (0:59) - Theories included rip-stop functionality, extra protection layer, and sanforizing rigidity
• The Answer: Lee Denim (2:20) - Lee is the reason Type III jackets have those two lines - they did it first
• Vintage Jacket Collection (2:41) - Five denim jackets worth over $5,750 examined, courtesy of webuyjeans.com
• Levi’s History (4:39) - Levi Strauss didn’t invent denim; it was perfected in France 229 years before he was born
• Rivet Patent (5:30) - Jacob Davis invented riveted jeans and partnered with Levi Strauss to patent them
• Golden Era (5:57) - From first riveted clothing to the 1940s, Levi’s had no real competition
• Type I (506XX) (6:25) - First released 1905, had 48-year run; featured rivets, selvage, one pocket, cinch, pleats
• Type II (507XX) (9:18) - Introduced two pockets, slimmer arms, waist cinches; only had 9-year run (1953-1962)
• Levi’s Identity Crisis (10:24) - Type II represents Levi’s indecision between workwear and fashion brands
• Carhartt Parallel (10:49) - Carhartt emerged in 1889 as dedicated workwear while Levi’s became pop culture
• Jack Lucier Design (11:54) - Designer of Type III and son of Chris Lucier who added the red tab in 1937
• Lee 101-J (13:50) - Lee released their slim, athletic jacket 14 years before Levi’s Type III
• Star Wars Effect (14:15) - After 70 years of Western films, Star Wars shifted culture away from Western aesthetics

Mentions

Companies

• Levi’s/Levi Strauss (0:36) - Main subject, made denim jackets since late 1800s
• Lee Denim (2:20) - Competitor who inspired Type III design
• Wrangler (2:31) - Mentioned as sitting out the jacket design evolution
• Carhartt (10:49) - Emerged in 1889 as dedicated workwear brand
• The Iron Snail (3:09) - Michael’s own clothing brand
• We Buy Old Jeans (2:41) - Source for vintage jacket collection

Products & Technologies

• Type I / 506XX Jacket (6:25) - First Levi’s jacket design from 1905
• Type II / 507XX Jacket (9:18) - Second iteration from 1953
• Type III Jacket (0:42) - The iconic modern denim jacket from 1962
• Lee 101-J (13:50) - Lee’s athletic slim jacket from 1948
• Prologue V2 (1:32) - Iron Snail’s denim jacket
• Chapter 1 Jeans (3:21) - Iron Snail’s jeans with hemp pockets
• Sanforizing (1:37) - Pre-shrinking process introduced in 1928
• Selvage Denim (6:56) - Self-finishing edge denim prized by collectors

People

• Levi Strauss (4:39) - Founder of Levi’s, expanded family business to California
• Jacob Davis (5:30) - Invented riveted jeans, partnered with Strauss for patent
• Jack Lucier (11:54) - Designer of the Type III jacket
• Chris Lucier (12:00) - Jack’s father, added red tab to Levi’s in 1937
• Gio (2:41) - Friend at webuyjeans.com who provided vintage jackets
• Taylor (3:33) - Michael’s partner who said he looks like a cowboy

Surprising Quotes

“Lee denim is the answer as to why the type 3 Levi’s denim jacket and all the type 3s after that for many different brands have those two lines in the front and two lines in the back.” — 2:25

“The Type 2 or the 507XX is kind of the pinnacle of Levi’s indecision on if they want to be a workwear brand or if they want to be a fashion brand.” — 11:24

“Indigo is like a core thing of humanity as we know it. The oldest sample we have is 6,000 years old, more likely it was used up to 10,000 years ago.” — 4:52

“There is no type four. After a virtually 70-year streak of uninterrupted smash hit western films, Hollywood is rocked by a little film called Star Wars.” — 14:15

“There’s actually a very popular documentary about the shift from Western culture to space culture and how people got obsessed with it. The documentary is called Toy Story.” — 14:52

Transcript

0:00 The only way to figure out why these lines exist is to purchase over $5,000 in vintage denim jackets then of course we start to theorize. I initially thought this was a clever way of Levi’s making a rip stock denim meaning that if a hole formed here during the workday it wouldn’t spread past here so you can get home and repair it. A valid theory with more to come. To get the answer we must start at the beginning.

0:22 Hey what are these for? Denim jackets always have two lines on either side but what are these for? Because I know what those are for and I even know what those are for. I don’t know what these are for. Didn’t know what those are for. I do, I do know, I do know now otherwise it’d be a dumb video we both don’t know.

0:36 Today we focus on Levi’s, a company that made denim jackets since the late 1800s but these two lines and two lines on the back didn’t show up until 1962. And Levi’s made many jackets before this one but this one was called the denim jacket to rule them all and it is now the most popular denim jacket of all time and ubiquitous with the denim jacket. But it also represents Levi’s turning their back on their main customers.

0:59 Returning to my theories, I initially thought this was a clever way of Levi making a rip stop denim meaning that if a hole formed here during the workday it wouldn’t spread past here so you can get home and repair it. Likewise here, here, here, here and also right around here. I also thought that maybe these two seams act as a layer of protection so if something hits you here or rubs up against you you have an extra layer of denim that will break down first before say you fall off your bike before it goes through the main layer of denim and starts to hit your skin or hurt you in some other way.

1:29 Also do you like this jacket? Do you think it looks cool? Because it’s Prologue V2. And then the nerdiest reasoning behind all of this would be sanforizing. 1928 is introduced, that’s pre-shrinking garments. Didn’t really get popular in denim until the 1950s but brands like Levi’s couldn’t sanforize heavyweight fabrics. It had to be a certain weight like 12 oz so my thought was maybe they added these seams to add more rigidity and heft to the garment while still being able to sanforize it and keep it easy to produce in mass and not have the customer have to pre-shrink it.

2:00 I had a lot of theories because most things with Levi’s and denim have a purpose behind them because they’re workwear and there is a purpose behind these lines. And when I talk to experts that are much more in the denim trade than me the answer and the explanation was simply Lee. Lee denim, Lee genuine jeans, we brand every pair.

2:25 Lee denim is the answer as to why the type 3 Levi’s denim jacket and all the type 3s after that for many different brands have those two lines in the front and two lines in the back. Poor Wrangler just off in the middle of nowhere sat this one out.

2:35 Today we’ll explore why these things exist by looking at five denim jackets that are collectively worth over $5,750 courtesy of my friend Gio at webuyjeans.com. Obviously there’s a catch though and I have to say go ransack your grandparents closet, your parents closet, your closet if you’re kind of old. Look for old jeans, not like JNCOs or something like that, but if you have a jacket that looks like this and says Levi’s on it you’re going to get a fat wad of cash from Gio so definitely check those out.

3:04 Look what I found, my favorite animal, a turtle. Hello turtle! What’s up nerds, it’s Michael and welcome back to the Iron Snail, a YouTube channel about the greatest clothing pieces of all time and just nerding out about fabrics and chilling.

3:18 Also I’m trying to create the greatest clothing brand of all time and that is why I am wearing these jeans. These are the first ever jeans from the Iron Snail collection, Chapter 1 jeans. These are the Leafline versions so our lower cost version, $105 American-made denim, made in America, fit high-rise. Taylor says I look like a cowboy and she just came from Montana and keeps talking about cowboys so I think that is a nice compliment. Comes with all the fixings, has a nice little hidden detail on the back, half hemp pockets.

3:44 And then of course there is the not Leafline version which is 15 oz Japanese salvage denim with 100% hemp pockets to prevent rips and tears. There’s a whole blog post we wrote about it. And of course I don’t want to advertise on this whole thing. The Prologue V2, the sizing is, well let me show you, 15 oz raw Japanese salvage denim. I added waist inches in the back, skin-lined the pockets so they’re nice and soft and gave a little hint of scarlet red. I also per reading your Reddit comments about the jacket opened up the fit, shortened it a little bit and accounted for its first wash so it’s a little long, a little big on me but once it washes it’ll shrink down to the exact size that I anticipate.

4:19 You can check all of these out by going to theironsnail.us, a website that I just also completely overhauled to look new and it took me a long time to figure out exactly how to do that. But yeah we’re live baby. Well we’re not live yet, you could sign up to the newsletter on the site so I can tell you when these are ready to launch and you can buy one. But also if you’re on the newsletter I usually do a giveaway so I’m going to give away like five pieces from this collection just to get the people going. Thank you for listening to me ramble.

4:39 Part one: A broad history. Levi Strauss and Levi’s did not invent denim. That was invented, perfected in France in Nimes, 229 years before Levi Strauss was even born. He also wasn’t the first person to put indigo on fabric. The oldest sample that we have, we as in the world have, is 6,000 years old. More likely it was used up to 10,000 years ago and I think even further back from that. Indigo is like a core thing of humanity as we know it.

5:04 What Levi Strauss did do was own a clothing brand. His family owned a clothing brand and they were like hey America’s getting bigger, someone’s got to go to Cali and start slinging stuff out there so we can expand our business. And Levi Strauss was like yo I’m on that Bay Area E40 hyphy hyphy hyphy.

5:19 One of Levi Strauss’s wholesale customers who was buying his fabric to make garments called up Levi on a phone that didn’t exist yet and said hey Levi this lady asked me if I can make pants for her husband and she wanted them to be super strong and not ripped so I used a rivet which was first used in ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago to secure handles onto clay pots. Levi was like dude that is so sick how can I help you?

5:38 And Jacob Davis basically said I need money, I can’t secure the patent for this so can you help me since you’re loaded? Levi Strauss said yeah, also it’s now called Levi Strauss. That happened and then the blue jean was basically born as we know it. Levi Strauss was setting up more and more factories and everybody was kind of going hog wild over these super strong pants that they needed.

5:57 Part two: He’s going to call it the Golden Era. I’m going to call this the Golden Era of Levi’s. It’s like from the second they riveted their first piece of clothing to like the 1940s when obviously Levi’s has always been making dump trucks of money but at this time there were no competitors. Everybody was like oh my God that’s amazing. I guess until the 1890s people were like freaking out being like this is amazing, this is the best and Levi’s was flying high. And then slowly two competitors started to kind of creep up behind Levi’s and try and eat its lunch.

6:23 The Type 1 jacket or the 506XX was first released in 1905 and the one I’m wearing is from 1947. Harry S. Truman was President, Arnold Schwarzenegger was born and Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby were all insanely popular. This jacket was being worn when Christmas music was just being pumped out.

6:40 Anyways let’s find a safe place to put this jacket down and I will break down what a worker in the 1940s needed from their jackets cuz Levi’s was a workwear brand for a while. We didn’t have bar tacks back then so rivets were kind of the most important thing. There’s rivets on the pockets, there’s rivets on the cuffs and there’s rivets on the back on the cinch that we’ll get into in a second.

6:56 This is a selvage line. Now you see it with Japanese selvage denim a lot, self-finishing edge. Basically you didn’t need to add stitching over the edge of denim and it wouldn’t fray. Collectors go crazy for this. People at the time did not give two craps if it was there or not.

7:07 Only one booby pocket which I always found very weird especially because the triple pleat blouse had two kidney pockets and this has one. The reasoning I read behind it was just workers at the time didn’t really need two pockets, they had belts and other pockets that take care of it and it could snag on things while they were working. And also most importantly for Levi’s it was quicker to make something without a second pocket and cheaper so they could pass on savings to the customer or keep more money for themselves, who knows what they did.

7:32 The cinch on this jacket is actually snipped off but old jackets were meant to be very big cuz they were workwear pieces so people could cinch them tighter if they needed them to be cinch tighter. These jackets also had very dropped shoulders. You can see this looks like I’m a little slouchy in it and they dropped the shoulder because if you’re a bigger dude that’s not taller you need a bigger shoulder so it’s easier to have a drop shoulder like this with the same length sleeve rather than make like 50 sizes for big and tall, big and short and anything in between.

7:56 We also have pleats on the backy wacky so if you stretch your arms forward the jacket opened up a bit more. And we have front pleats with a box stitch that you would slice if your stomach was getting bigger for whatever reason, maybe you’re pregnant or if you’re wearing a lot of clothes so that way the jacket could fit over your ginormous belly and or flannels.

8:12 And then finally the denim direction changes from this part of the body to this part of the body. This little placket on the top here is to end this pleat line but the denim is also going this way and denim shrinks a lot more this way so I thought maybe it was super wide and then when you would rinse the jacket it would shrink to your shoulders to fit you a little bit better because these jackets were not sanforized so they shrunk up to 10% when you put them in the wash. But I don’t know.

8:34 Either way this is absolutely a fantastic fit, the epitome of Levi Strauss workwear brand, could fit anyone. This is Levi’s in their Golden Era. This jacket had a 48-year run, six times longer than the next jacket. The next jacket came out was gorgeous and Levi’s was like well we made a big mistake, you have to scrap this right now, we need to pivot our brand. One of the best pivots in history to make Levi’s what it is today although that was kind of happening anyways. But still, that is the 506XX.

8:58 Part three: Levi’s little tiny mistake that made a beautiful jacket. The patent for Levi’s riveted jeans expired in 1890 and every other brand was suddenly able to copy them. To stand out they embroidered their back pockets and added a red tab in 1937 but even then they had to take a more drastic measure to remain the king of denim. They introduced a new jacket.

9:20 Levi drops their 507XX, definitely the most beautifully aged jacket that we have today. Look at the holes on the pockets, there’s some holes over here, holes in the back. And obviously these jackets start off as a very dark blue like raw denim does and they fade and wear over time to beautiful different shades with so much character.

9:39 But the question of course is what exactly did they change from the Type 1 to the Type 2 and why? First thing, no you’re not seeing double, Levi’s has two booby pockets now. Two boobs now instead of one, that was a big change. There’s no more back cinch, that got replaced with these little waist cinches at the bottom. We still do have pleats located conveniently at the bottom of the jacket and the top.

9:59 The arms on the 507XX Type 2 did get slimmed a lot. This used to be like down to here. Some models of the jacket also got a little bit longer than the Type 1 but not by much, you’d never notice. And now we have some bar tacks instead of rivets.

10:10 The Type 2 did not have a 48-year run though like the Type 1. It was basically shot in the head in 9 years. It was born in 1953, welcome to the world, clunk, dead, gone, 1962. RIP Type 2 jacket.

10:24 Essentially at this point Levi’s was like a worldwide icon and denim was the coolest thing that everybody was wearing because the world was fascinated, well America at least was fascinated with Westerns. Western movies, Western life and everything like that. Hollywood had been doing Western movies for like 50, 60 years at that point.

10:41 Levi’s was becoming no longer workwear but accepted by the masses and everybody was wearing it because it had a great utilitarian purpose, it was comfortable and it looked cool. Which is happening to another brand right now, you may have heard of them, they are called Carhartt. Levi’s was kind of the original Carhartt where all of a sudden the world was like that stuff that you’re wearing to work looks awesome, I’m going to wear it not to work and think it’s cool too.

11:03 Oh and speaking of Carhartt, guess who popped up in 1889 and was like we do workwear, we don’t care if it’s denim, whatever, it just has to be tough and has to be suitable for work. Carhartt. Carhartt’s all of a sudden a big thing.

11:11 So Levi essentially had to be like okay wait a minute so now denim is like this pop culture icon thing, someone else is doing workwear like exclusively and there’s 990,000 other denim brands. Like what the heck should we do?

11:24 And the Type 2 or the 507XX is kind of the pinnacle of Levi’s indecision on if they want to be a workwear brand or if they want to be a fashion brand because they keep pleats on the front and back, the jacket still has some mobility in the chest but the arms are greatly greatly slimmed down so you can’t really move around for workwear. So it’s right in the middle and sometimes right in the middle is not good because people on both sides then don’t want it.

11:46 So Levi’s took one last look at their 507XX, their Type 2 jacket that only had a 9-year run and said we’re a fashion brand, kill it.

11:54 And enter Jack Lucier. I don’t even know if that’s how you say his last name. Jack Lucier, designer of the Levi’s Type 3 and son of Chris Lucier who put the red tab in Levi’s in 1937.

12:04 So it’s actually pretty easy to see how Levi’s kind of melted into the Type 3 from the Type 2. This morphed into that. But after we go through what Jack Lucier may have been thinking there is one giant detail we have to talk about. That giant detail is called Lee denim, Lee genuine jeans, who kind of you know 15 years, 14 years before this, did this.

12:25 Okay so if you’re Jack Lucier this is kind of the canvas that you’re working with. This is the latest jacket, how can we make it more modern, more fashionable? What can we remove, what can we add? This is your canvas.

12:35 This top block that ends the pleat is very iconic so we’ll keep that but since we’re going for fashion and sleekness let’s take this front pocket and move it up and hide the top pocket flap under here. Pleats are not needed anymore because we’re not a workwear brand. We want to be modern, we want to be different. So let’s take these two pleats, put them over here and make them into seams to pay homage to pleats that are always on the jacket but also make the jacket more slimming on the front.

12:57 And let’s do the same thing on the back here, we’ll remove these two pleats but we’ll make them V-shaped seams that come down to slim the body of the jacket and remove the extra fabric. It does help to note that old jackets were advertised like this. During the time this jacket was designed people really liked the very aggressive V-shape on any piece of clothing so that’s why it’s very V focused.

13:14 And since the jacket is supposed to be more slim and form fitting we can raise the shoulders a tiny bit and we can also change the size of the collar without worrying about the implications as to what is going to happen to someone that is working with this jacket. Do they need a shorter or longer collar?

13:25 Put that all together and the Levi’s Type 3 is born. We are paying homage to the pleats of old on the front and back, we are slimming the jacket, we’re making it more stylish, more fashionable, easier to wear. It’s everything that a fashion enthusiast would want.

13:44 But 14 years before the Levi’s Type 3 is designed and released, Lee comes out with their 101-J, a jacket that is specifically meant to be slimmer, more athletic, minimalist everywhere. All of that is to say these are both beautiful jackets but you could see maybe where one brand got inspiration from the other and made something.

14:05 So we have the Type 3 which is the denim jacket to rule them all and then there is no Type 4.

14:11 After a virtually 70-year streak of uninterrupted smash hit Western films, Hollywood is rocked by a little film called Star Wars and all of a sudden the whole world is like whoa, Western culture, put a pause on it. That’s great, click, it’s done. We don’t need to advance on that anymore, we don’t need new designs. That’s all locked in. And these are the pieces from that era that are iconic. And now the culture is not around cool Western celebrities so there doesn’t need to be an iteration on these jackets. They remain perfect and timeless.

14:40 That is about it. I will see you all next week. Thank you so much, I hope you go on theironsnail.us and you check out the Prologue and the Chapter 1 and the Leafline and everything like that cuz I’m very excited about it. I like this jacket a lot and I think you will too.

14:52 Also a little bonus, I was researching obviously this topic online and I came across a Reddit post that said there’s actually a very popular documentary about the shift from Western culture to space culture and how people got obsessed with it. The documentary is called Toy Story and I was like oh I get it.