Why the fashion industry has finally discovered Levi's Successful collaborations and the strength of its archive have contributed to the brand's comeback
We are not even in the middle of 2021, yet Levi's has already been part of three high-level collaborations, with Valentino, Miu Miu and Ganni, but also with Heron Preston, Awake NY, Disney, Pokèmon, Denim Tears and bentgablenits. All three main collaborations had to do either with the brand's heritage or with its commitment to the field of sustainable production, which also earned it a good rating on the Good On You platform.
In any case, these collaborations are also said, the result of a long-term strategy. After a period of crisis in the mid-10s, in which, as the brand's then-president, James Curleigh, said in 2015: «All of a sudden, we get attacked by premium. All of a sudden, value and own-label and fast fashion come and try to take a piece of the business». A situation that was reversed in 2019, the year in which Levi's returned to being valued on the stock exchange for 8 billion dollars and to sell on average one T-shirt per second that year. Things had become slightly complicated since July 2019 and, later, with the lockdown crisis – but the brand recovered big in the third quarter of 2020 thanks to a strategy that simultaneously narrowed product categories and wholesale operations, together with staff, and invested in digital and e-commerce that became 24% of the brand's global revenue. And now Levi's is preparing to relaunch physical stores to return to the extraordinary levels reached in 2019 but has also started to dialogue with the World of European Haute Couture.
From a pure fashion point of view, the strength of the brand lies commercially in its size and heritage, but in terms of design in its intelligent segmentation on the market. In addition to the mainline, in fact, the brand owns several premium lines dedicated to collectors, enthusiasts and brand lovers: the most recent are the RED line, brought back to life in Japan after seven years of stasis, and the Secondhand project – that is, a marketplace of vintage garments that cheaply resells jeans and other items that the owners have given to the brand in exchange for a voucher. The other two are the classic Levi's Vintage Clothing and Levi's Made and Crafted, presented in 1999 and 2009 respectively and dedicated to the premium price range. These lines, together with some historical collaborations such as the one with Chrome Hearts, have had the great merit of opening the doors of archival fashion to the brand: an increasingly large audience characterized by an almost scholarly and technical approach to history, materials and production details that, however narrow it is still compared to the mainstream market, guarantees the brand credibility that its competitors do not have. It is no coincidence that levi's customized items appear in almost all Grailed rankings on the most expensive items sold every week or month.
The "transversal" success of premium lines for enthusiasts and customized luxury models such as those of Chrome Hearts but also as premium jeans made with recycled Levi's, such as those produced by the Los Angeles showroom/brand Unsound Rags and sold for 440$ per pair, are just the tip of the iceberg of a huge success that the brand has enjoyed for decades in the field of secondhand. Chip Bergh, the current CEO of Levi's, discussed just that with WWD talking about the Secondhand project:
We are arguably the leading brand in thrift store business. People go out and they hunt for authentic vintage Levi’s, and even older, worn, broken-in Levi’s… […] We decided to turn this trend into a program. […] We’re able to tap into this insight about the importance of the circular economy, and there are very few brands that can pull this off better than us. This really does play to our sweet spot. The thrift industry today is about a $30-billion-a-year industry globally, and we’re probably the largest brand, and it’s projected to double in the next five years.
