The Jeans Museum in Switzerland

We all know where to head for the latest designer jeans which have just made their way off the catwalks (Boudi London) but where do you go if you want to find out more about the western world’s favourite fashion item, jeans? Especially if you want to know more about brands, manufacturing history and popular past trends? Well, if you happen to be travelling in Switzerland, particularly in the Zurich area you may want to pop by the legendary Jeans Museum.

Jean Tinguely museum in Basel

This is an exceptionally specialist museum and one of the very few museums dedicated solely to jeans and denim on the whole so definitely worth a visit, especially if you want to do something different and in the Swizz mountains away from the typical tourist destinations.

The museum was started by jeans enthusiast Ruedi Karrer in 1973 when he started building up his collection! The collection was then officially opened as a museum in 2002 and since then has went from strength to strength and now people travel across the world to see this amazing collection. As Ruedi’s aim is to save as many pieces of denim as he possibly can then if you can, why not donate some of your old pieces to be preserved and made part of history? It’s also worth keeping an eye out on the Jeans Museum website and looking out for updates as Ruedi is currently looking to get a jeans exhibition started!

One of the main advantages of this particular denim museum is the fact it is independent of any of the brands which means you will get the opportunity to discover the history of the majority  of the best designer jeans brands that are known across the world such as Levi’s, G-Star, Marcel Scheiner and Lee Cooper. The museum has approximately 7000 different jeans and 5000 denim jackets available and with donations accepted the collection continues to grow with lots of pieces focusing on the vintage between 1950 and 1970!

Despite the fact that this is such a niche attraction you may be surprised to find that there are further denim and jeans related museums and attractions in the likes of Japan and Germany (The Levi Strauss Museum), giving you the opportunity to visit more than one and get a thorough look at the history of that item of clothing none of us can now live without!

Photos: rick ligthelm