One label is responsible for the first pair of coveralls in 1913, the first pair of zippered blue jeans in 1927, and for setting the template that would come to define an American cool for generations in the 1950s. From their early days as a general mercantile store in Salina, Kansas, Lee™ has been here—iterating and innovating since 1889. Yet it’s often overlooked that during the wartime rationing of the 1940s, Lee would leave some of its most indelible marks on our culture—most notably, with a few subtle revisions to that pair of jeans with the zipper, the 101.

In the early forties, wartime restrictions on materials led Lee to refine the 101, which was still being made with a zipper fly and its original buckle-back cinch. By the late 1940s, the buckle-back was gone, and with zippers needed for the war effort, buttons returned to the fly as they had prior to 1927. Along with a paring back of hardware and subtle changes to construction, the result was one of the earliest representations of the modern-day blue jean. Just a few years later, a young, handsome rebel would hit the silver screen in a very similar 101, where he taught a nation of impressionable teenagers how to wear denim with style.