Home / Arts and Entertainment / Freddie Mercury's Worn Jeans Fetch $36,000 at Auction
Freddie Mercury's Worn Jeans Fetch $36,000 at Auction
7 Nov
Summary
- Freddie Mercury's worn skinny jeans auctioned for $36,000 in 2023
- Levi's Vault museum in San Francisco displays vintage denim outfits
- Kurt Cobain's $412,750 jeans are the most expensive pair ever sold
As of November 2025, the Levi's Vault museum in San Francisco has reopened to the public, showcasing a collection of iconic denim outfits worn by music legends over the past 60 years. One of the highlights is a mannequin wearing Freddie Mercury's worn-down skinny jeans, which auctioned for 27,940 British pounds (roughly $36,000) in 2023.
The museum's in-house historian, Tracey Panek, explains the challenge of fitting the small mannequin into Mercury's jeans, which are remarkably tiny. Though the Queen frontman never wore these jeans on stage, he was spotted in them during rehearsals, earning them the title "the jeans he lived in."
Another standout piece is Kurt Cobain's heavily patched jeans, which sold for a record-breaking $412,750 at auction in 2023. These jeans, which Cobain wore in the "Heart-Shaped Box" music video and his final photoshoot, are now on display in the center of the Vault, surrounded by a stack of amps.
The Levi's Vault also showcases all-denim outfits worn by other music icons, including Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears at the 2001 American Music Awards, as well as a pair of hippie jeans from the late 1960s that were loaned to Pharrell Williams for a GQ photoshoot.
