A number of industry organisations are celebrating May 20 as an unofficial anniversary for jeans.

Denim City São Paulo, an initiative that hosts hubs for denim design, events, shopping and education, said it wanted to celebrate the anniversary because “so few fashion products have such a strong connection to so much history, technology and identity as a pair of jeans”.

The rationale behind the anniversary is that May 20 was the date when, in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis filed a patent application for trousers that used metal rivets to hold the pieces in place, giving rise to the phenomenon of modern denim jeans.

“It is exactly 153 years since the most democratic fashion item in the world was born,” Denim City São Paulo said.

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