The Jean Pool

IN 1997, ROBERT RIFKIN QUIT HIS JOB SELLING Italian suits to manage a used-Levi’s shop in West Los Angeles. “My mom said, ‘You’re crazy. You’re leaving a good job for this shack?’ ”

Mom obviously didn’t understand the passions aroused by vintage denim. Six months into the job, Rifkin cut a deal with the owner to take over the business, which he renamed Rufcut. Today the indigo blue shack in the middle of the Billingsley’s Restaurant parking lot on Pico Boulevard has achieved cult status for Levi’s enthusiasts who travel to tiny storefronts and flea markets nationwide in pursuit of vintage jeans.

A few of Rufcut’s customers fly in from Japan as well, where vintage Levi’s 501s are especially prized. There’s even a Japanese term--”hige,” or whiskers--for the highly desirable horizontal lines fanning out from the button fly of a well- worn pair.

While most of Rifkin’s jeans are priced less than $50 a pair, a few choice offerings have price tags around $1,000. Most of these are 501s from the ‘50s and ‘60s, jeans known as “Big E’s,” because the red tabs read LEVI’S instead of today’s LeVI’S.

Hard-core collectors also look for Red Lines, the trade name for 501s produced between 1971 and the early ‘80s after Big E’s were phased out; they get their name from the subtle red thread that runs down the length of the pant leg, inside the jeans.

Record producer Tim Kelley counts himself a member of the club: He’s purchased nearly 300 pairs of jeans from Rifkin in the past year. (“I’m an obsessive person in general,” he says). Kelley prefers used over new because “it doesn’t give you that hard, heavy starch feeling of a brand new pair.” In addition, “all of them fit differently. Take 38 by 32. You could have 10 vintage [pairs] and all of them would give you a different look. I like to mix it up.” His collection includes a $1,500 pair of gently worn late ‘60s Big E’s. “It’s a special pair of jeans that no one else has and no one else can get.”

Kelley acknowledges that most folks don’t understand the appeal. “But once you get into it, it becomes like a hobby. Really, it’s all about style--like all Prada or Gucci.”

Rifkin, who also buys used Levi’s and does custom tailoring (transforming old jeans into this season’s must-have denim skirt, for example), has a slightly different spin on the obsession: It is, he says, “like adopting someone you’re close to. When people buy used Levi’s, they buy them because they feel like they’ve owned them forever, like they’re the ones who broke them in.”

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Rarities

The following vintage items are included in Levi Strauss & Co.’s private archives:

A pair of 501 jeans produced between 1890-1901, most likely worn by a cowboy (the legs have “spur bites”). Purchased for $25,000 from a vintage clothing dealer in 1997.

501s manufactured between 1922-1935, worn by a miner and found by a college student in the garbage dump of an abandoned Nevada mine. Purchased for $2,000 in 1993.

Lot 701 “Lady’s Levi’s” made in 1943, worn by a woman whose granddaughter later found them in a car trunk. Purchased for $2,000 in the mid ‘90s. (The back pockets were “painted on,” a response to a WWII mandate against wasting raw materials.)

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Rufcut, 11344 W. Pico Blvd.; (310) 473-LEVI.