Glossary
San Francisco Fashion Glossary
Definitions for the terms, people, brands, movements, and ideas that show up across San Francisco fashion history.
Terms and Entities
- San Francisco fashion
- A utility-first, self-expressive approach to style shaped by denim, workwear, counterculture, outdoor clothing, tech casual, athleisure, resale, sustainability, and AI-assisted design.
- Gold Rush workwear
- Durable clothing associated with mining, port commerce, and western labor. It forms the practical foundation for San Francisco's denim story.
- Levi Strauss & Co.
- A San Francisco company central to the history of riveted denim and blue jeans.
- Jacob Davis
- The tailor who partnered with Levi Strauss & Co. on the 1873 rivet patent for reinforcing pocket openings.
- Riveted denim
- Denim clothing reinforced with metal rivets at stress points, a practical workwear innovation that helped blue jeans become a global wardrobe staple.
- Haight-Ashbury fashion
- The expressive counterculture style associated with San Francisco's 1960s hippie scene: thrifted clothing, denim, handmade pieces, fringe, beads, and psychedelic color.
- Summer of Love
- The 1967 San Francisco counterculture moment that made Haight-Ashbury style visible as a broader fashion language of music, protest, freedom, and self-expression.
- Tech casual
- The Bay Area workplace style that helped normalize jeans, sneakers, fleece, performance layers, and comfort-first clothing in professional settings.
- Athleisure
- Clothing designed around movement and comfort that is also worn in everyday settings, including leggings, sneakers, fleece, performance tops, and active dresses.
- Bay Area sustainable fashion
- A fashion approach connected to resale, circularity, durable basics, transparent pricing, recycled materials, and practical repeat wear.
- Circular fashion
- Clothing systems that keep garments in use longer through resale, repair, reuse, recycling, and lower-waste production.
- AI fashion
- The use of generative and computational tools to explore silhouettes, styling, textile ideas, campaign imagery, fit concepts, and digital prototypes.