You might not have even noticed them – but those little metal studs on your jean pockets could soon become a thing of the past.
The small, circular metal features – known technically as ‘rivets’ – were first put there as a way of holding the seams on jeans together for longer.
In the 1870s, when labourers first rocked denim in the workplace, their trousers quickly fell apart. A wife of one worker, Jacob Davies, added studs to areas of, ahem, strain on his trousers to keep them together. And it worked so well the rivets were part of Levi Strauss’s original 501 patent.
But now, the ‘Jeans Redesign’ guidelines, from British charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, argues the quality of modern stitching has made the rivets redundant. Their function is purely decorative.
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To reduce waste and the polluting impact of the denim industry, these metal studs should be ditched or “reduced to a minimum”, the guidelines say.
This might feel excessive, but for an industry that has a bad reputation for pollution, every little helps – Greenpeace says that to make a classic pair of blue jeans, the material has to undergo several chemical-intensive washes.
The new guidelines also state jeans should withstand at least 30 home washes, be made of “cellulose fibres from regenerative, organic or transitional farming methods”, and be free of hazardous chemicals.
“The way we produce jeans is causing huge problems with waste and pollution.”
Finishing methods – like sandblasting, stone finishing and the use of potassium permanganate (an oxidising agent that fades) – are also prohibited, under the new guidelines.
“The way we produce jeans is causing huge problems with waste and pollution but it doesn’t have to be this way,” said Francois Souchet, of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
There were more than 40 denim experts involved in the production of these new guidelines – including the brands Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Lee, Reformation and Vero Moda.