Here is an irresistible portrait of an iconic cloth and a celebration of style's most enduring inspiration. It is said that over 80 percent of the planet have owned an item of denim clothing. We spend hours crafting the insouciant turn of a hem and the casual roll of a collar; we spend our hard-earned money on carefully weathered, faded denim. And here is our original inspiration: defined over 70 years ago by hard-working people in their hard-working labours in a timeless look that has never gone out of style. In black and white and colour, these are photographs of ordinary Americans relentlessly toiling - hands, face, boots and denim dirty - to push America out of the Great Depression into the prosperity of its post-War years. And all wearing the toughest utility fabric available to them - denim.