Jean jacket

A denim jacket, also called a jean jacket, jeans jacket or trucker jacket, is a jacket made from denim. Introduced in the United States in the late 19th century, it has been a popular type of casual apparel with both men and women and has been described as an iconic element of American fashion. Though a staple of western wear, the denim jacket has also enjoyed a more general appeal.

The first recorded denim jacket is part of the collection of the German Historical Commission of the Rhineland (Stiftung Historische Kommission für die Rheinlande 1789–1815) and dates back to 1805 or 1810. In the United States the first recorded denim jacket is from about 1880, produced by German businessman Levi Strauss approximately ten years after he had begun selling jeans with copper rivets as a new type of work apparel intended for use by cowboys, miners, and railroad workers. Levi Strauss & Co. then introduced the "Type I" jacket, then known as the 506XX, in 1905. The Type I featured a boxy fit, a single chest pocket, and a rear buckle cinch. In 1953, Levi's reworked the Type I into what became known as the "Type II", which featured two symmetrical chest pockets and side adjuster tabs in place of the cinch. The "Type III" denim jacket was introduced by Levi's in 1962 and was designed by Jack Lucier. It has been described as the Denim jacket "to rule them all". Also known as "the trucker jacket", design elements of the Type III include a more tapered style than its predecessors, welt hand pockets, and bar tacks which hold down chest pocket and sleeve openings.

In 2014, Google collaborated with Levi Strauss & Co. to develop a "connected" denim jacket described by Wired as the "denim jacket of the future". The underlying technology, named "Jacquard," encompassed a processor, a built-in battery, and a special yarn that gave the bottom of the arm a pseudo-touchscreen functionality. The same year, New York Fashion Week featured several denim jackets, with The Guardian predicting that the denim jacket would "be everywhere in 2018". A second version of the Jacquard jacket, featuring an appearance closer to jackets without the technology as well as a lower price, was released in late 2019.

In addition to Levi Strauss & Co., companies designing denim jackets have included Wrangler, Calvin Klein, Tom Ford, Gucci, and Dior, among others.

According to GQ, there are "few things more iconic, more innately American, than a denim jacket" and the magazine has called it "a staple for stylish men". Jean jackets have also been popular with women.

Jean jackets, like jeans, are a major element of western wear; however, like jeans themselves, they have also enjoyed a more general appeal. Notable wearers of jean jackets have included western entertainers James Dean and John Lennon, as well as Polish anti-Communist dissident Jacek Kuroń. In 2017, GQ opined that Kanye West seemed to own "an alarming number of jean jackets", remarking that "he doesn't seem to go a few days without wearing one".

According to Levi Strauss & Co., the jean jacket has traditionally appealed to nonconformists as "a knock to the 'suits' of the world, its informal yet edgy heritage making it the ideal item to stick it to the man".

In the 2022 Jordan Peele film Nope, the flying alien is eventually referred to as "Jean Jacket", named after one of Em's horses.