On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss patented the Levi's 501s for jeans. The garment has long been a part of popular culture, and has graced one more famous butt after another.
SVT Kulturnyheterna's fashion critic Dennis Dahlqvist remembers when the jeans model became iconic in 1984. "There were a lot of things that came together in this moment when Nick Kamen takes off his pants," he tells SVT. The connection and the mass media attention is what makes the garment iconic, not that they fit great.