Levi Strauss started a wholesale business of importing and selling fine dry goods from his brothers in New York including clothing, bedding, combs, purses, and handkerchiefs. Later he started making tents and subsequently, jeans.

Jacob Davis, a Latvian immigrant, was a tailor who frequently purchased goods from Strauss and had invented the modern version of jeans. He wanted to patent it but had no money, therefore he went into business with Strauss to produce blue jeans which they later patented in 1873. And that’s how the riveted jeans we all know so well today were born.