Denim, a wardrobe staple, never goes out of fashion.
Why denim never goes out of fashion.
Is it possible to be both a 164-year-old heritage brand and a fashion disrupter?
Jonathan Cheung, Levi’s head of global design for men and women, thinks so.
Just ask him why the San Francisco denim giant born out of the California Gold Rush endures, and he’ll relay a litany of reasons why the inventor of the first blue jean has for decades remained an international powerhouse that consistently breaks the mold.
From its foray with Google into wearable tech for its “smart denim” trucker jacket launching in the fall, to spring’s “bare-butt jeans” collaboration with Paris fashion collective Vetements, Levi’s continues to innovate with some of the world’s most prominent creative leaders.
“It’s adapt or perish,” says Cheung, who can often be found tinkering at the Levi’s Eureka Innovation Lab, a short walk from the company’s Battery Street headquarters. “In this Bay Area context, you have to have that mind-set of ‘I’m going to disrupt myself ’ rather than sit and wait to inevitably be disrupted.”
Despite the dominance of athleisure, sagging sales in the $12 billion U.S. denim market, and an industry reeling from the 24-hour online shopping effect, Levi Strauss & Co. has managed to grow its profits and stay true to its heritage while upping its all-important cool quotient.
“They’ve never left their roots, yet they’ve figured out how to get engaged in what is trending, what is important and what is needed to make their product stay relevant,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group, a market research firm. “They’re still as important to the (Baby) Boomer who basically grew up on them. And they’ve become relevant to every generation from the Millennials to the Z and everyone in between.”
Levi Strauss & Co. got its humble start when Bavarian-born Levi Strauss, the youngest son in a Jewish family, immigrated to New York in the late 1840s to help his two older brothers establish a dry goods business, according to Levi’s historian Tracey Panek.
Looking for opportunity in Gold Rush country, Strauss headed to San Francisco in 1853, setting up shop on Battery and Pine streets to expand the family wholesale business.
Strauss sold wares such as blankets, footwear and clothing to stores throughout the American West for the next 20 years, establishing himself as an eminent business leader and philanthropist throughout the city.
In the late 1850s, the discovery of Nevada’s Comstock Silver Lode led Reno tailor Jacob Davis to come up with an innovative pant design for the droves of silver miners working the area.
Adding tiny copper rivets on the pockets, waistband, crotch and other stress points, Davis created a stronger “waist overall” that could take the daily beating of hard labor.
“He got so many rave reviews for his pants that he couldn’t keep up with demand,” says Panek, who oversees an incomparable archive of denim collectibles at the Levi’s San Francisco headquarters, ranging from mud-caked cowboy 501s from the 1800s to the bedazzled super low-rise jeans Jennifer Lopez wore at the 2001 Super Bowl.
With Strauss already his fabric supplier, Davis proposed a partnership, and on May 20, 1873, Strauss and Davis received an official U.S. patent for work pants reinforced with copper rivets. The pivotal date has since come to be known as the birthday of the blue jean.
Initially called “XX” and renamed the 501 in 1890, the iconic American garment has evolved from work wear to counterculture statement to modern-day wardrobe staple, and is considered Levi’s — and San Francisco’s — single-most influential contribution to global fashion.
“If you go through a who’s who of who has worn Levi’s, they are the cultural movers and shakers,” says the 50-year-old Cheung, who has led the Levi’s design team for the past four years. “Figures from the birth of rock ’n’ roll to punk to grunge. Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs — even Einstein! It gives Levi’s this deep cultural historical connection that no other brand can rival in apparel.”
Today’s 501 jean maintains most of the same classic design details used as the industry prototype, from the signature red tab, five pockets and five belt loops to the leather patch on the waistband and trademarked arcuate backpocket stitching.
“501s will never go out of style, in the same way a Burberry trench, Manolo pump, Converse sneaker or Hanes T-shirt endure,” says Emily Holt, a former Vogue editor who founded womenswear boutique Hero Shop in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood in 2016.
Selling an average of 10 pairs of Levi’s per month, the store saw an increase of one pair
sold every other day throughout April and May.
“It’s important to me that the store has a sense of place, and so carrying brands like Levi’s that are representative of the city is crulso cial,” Holt says. “It a helps that Levi’s have become more visible lately among the highey’re fashion crowd, so they particularly relevant for our customer.”
Staying relevant and ahead of the pack is especially vital in the faltering $200 billion U.S. fashion apparel business, where denim makes up about 6 percent of the market.
A publicly held brand that also has Dockers, best known for its khakis, and value-based denim brands Denizen and Signature in its portfolio, Levi Strauss & Co. earned $291 million in net income in 2016 and has maintained topwth and bottom-line growth for four consecutive years, according to the company’s annual report.
Cohen characterizes the brand’s status as “in a healthy position because, frankly, we’ve been ignoring our denim wardd; robes for a while.
“Denim is not dead it’s just not as hot as it once was. For a while, people were buying five pairs a year and had 14 pairs in their wardrobes. So, between wearing those out and looking for new product, the life cycle of the denng im business is startin to come back again.”
Aiding that comeback is denechnical im’s entree into the technical and performance space. In recent years, Levi’s introduced shapea recovery jeans with a higher stretch and higher recovery ability; Warp Stretch for men with a vertical stretch that mirrors movements such as crouching and running; rugged jeans with Dyneema, an ultra-durable fiber used for climbing gear and military applications; moisax ture-wicking Coolmax jeans; and heat-retainmolite. ing jeans with Thermo lite
According to Sarah Ahmed, the New York creative director of DL1960 and founder of the new premium denim brand Warp + Weft, denemanding im consumers are demanding more utility from their jeans.
“Remember in 2005 when everyone had rhinestones and crazy things on their back pockets?” says Ahmed, whose new denim-fornconventionally all brand offers an unconvintionally wide range of sizes between 00 and 24, with every
“Remember in 2005 when everyone had rhinestones and crazy things on their back pockets?” Sarah Ahmed, CEO and founder of denim line Warp + Weft
jean priced under $100. “First they wanted jeans to just look good. Then they wanted them to feel good with advancements in technology of stretch and retention. That’s where the customer is now — they want everything.”
At the intersection of performance textiles and wearable tech is Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google. The $350 denim jacket, unveiled for consumer testing at the 2017 South by Southwest Festival, features a left sleeve with wireless digital technology woven into an interactive washable fabric. Created for the urban cyclist, a tap or brush of the cuff allows the wearer to play music or map a destination.
“They cover the low end, the high end, and even the super conceptual stuff,” says Kiya Babzani, co-owner of Self Edge in San Francisco’s Mission District, who began his selvage denim business 11 years ago stocking Levi’sinspired Japanese reproductions of vintage American jeans. “There’s no clothing company in the world that does so many levels of denim the way Levi’s does.”
But even as the brand has learned to coexist with athleisure, shoppers will be hard-pressed to find a slick Levi’s yoga pant anytime soon.
“That’s not our identity,” notes Cheung. “Comfort and versatility are fantastic. But we’ll look at that macro trend, then produce it in the Levi’s way.”
Always walking the line between pushing the fashion envelope and remaining true to its rich history, the beloved brand is constantly iterating its fits. For spring, Levi’s reintroduced the 1969 Orange Tab collection with a new line of vintage-inspired jeans, denim jackets and shirts. A limited-edition 501 capsule collection featuring hand-distressed denim, scribbled embroidery and vintage customizations dropped on May 20, which the brand celebrated as 501 Day with concerts and special events at Levi’s stores around the globe.
And for the first time, the iconic button-fly 501 with its classic distressed finish was offered last year in a stretch fabric, and this year in a body-conscious skinny fit.
“Our heritage is our anchor,” Cheung says. “But newness is the oxygen of our business.”