What True Religion is known for

Los Angeles premium-denim label founded in 2002 by Jeffrey Lubell and Michael Buckley; built its identity around a horseshoe-shaped back-pocket stitch inspired by a Buddha motif and became closely associated with 2000s hip-hop and celebrity style.

True Religion was founded in Los Angeles in 2002 by Jeffrey Lubell and Michael Buckley, entering a premium-denim market that was then dominated by older, mass-market brands. The label built its identity around a distinctive back-pocket stitch: a horseshoe-shaped 'Super T' design the brand describes as inspired by a Buddha's smile, paired with heavy, contrast-color stitching and deliberately exaggerated washes and fits. Those design choices, combined with a Buddha logo, made True Religion jeans easy to identify at a glance, and the brand was quickly picked up by hip-hop artists and Hollywood figures, appearing repeatedly in music videos and on red carpets through the mid-to-late 2000s. That period built True Religion into one of the defining premium-denim names of the decade, and the brand has more recently leaned on that nostalgia, including collaborations aimed at reintroducing the label to a younger generation of shoppers.