3 minute read
Long Lasting Levi’s
from February 2022
LASTING LEV I’S
BY SAMANTHA KRUSE PHOTOS BY PROVIDED
Levi’s rich history led to the brand becoming a global leader in jeans. It all started with Levi Strauss, an immigrant from Bavaria, Germany, who recognized the need for durable clothes for the working class. Levi founded Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) in San Francisco in 1853 when he opened a dry goods business. Soon after, he and a tailor named Jacob Davis combined forces, which led to the first manufacturing of “waist overalls” — now known as blue jeans. That invention transformed workwear for the everyday person, and LS&Co. only progressed from there to create several brands, including Levi’s. According to the company’s website,
as success led to manufacturing on a larger scale, it developed its Terms of Engagement in 1991, which is a code of conduct that incorporated ethical standards and requirements into LS&Co.’s supplier factories. This step towards improving ethical standards made the company’s values even stronger as it set out to address “forced labor, working hours, wages and benefits, freedom of association, discrimination, and health and safety,” according to LS&Co.’s website.
Ever since the company infiltrated these ethical standards, its brands followed suit and started changing its practices as well. The brand, Levi’s, has the mission to change the clothing industry for good, starting with production. Levi’s website provides information on exactly how it is becoming more environmentally friendly. Its most sustainable collection, WellThread, is made in “Worker Well-Being” facilities using rain-fed cottonized hemp and “Water<Less” technologies.
The Worker Well-Being initiative focuses on “financial empowerment, health and family well-being, and equality and acceptance,” according to LS&Co. Cottonized hemp is used in production, as it saves water, grows faster, and leaves cleaner soil. Hemp yarn is “soft like cotton,” according to Levi’s, and is used in styles such as its Stay Loose Jeans, Loose Sleeve Trucker Jacket, and WellThread shirts. In addition, Levi’s makes puffer jackets and vests from recycled plastic bottles and rubbish. As the brand continues to create new initiatives and technologies to guide manufacturing processes, it also has opened Levi’s SecondHand shop.
Levi’s “Buy Better, Wear Longer” campaign focuses on the overproduction and consumption issues in fashion and how the brand is working to raise awareness and change consumer habits. As Levi’s works to create this change, it has teamed up with “six icons and activists working on issues critical to the future of [the] planet,” according to LS&Co. One of the partners is Indonesian climate activist Melati Wijsen, co-founder of Bye Bye Plastic Bags, a youth-led movement with the mission to ban plastic bags, and founder of YOUTH-
TOPIA. Another partner, Jaden Smith, co-founded JUST Water, which is a certified B Corporation producing sustainably-sourced, plastic-free bottled water.
Levi’s has made significant efforts to implement a sustainable production process and plans to improve even more in the future. According to Planet Home, Levi’s intends to “lead the fashion industry in sustainability” and aims to utilize “100% sustainably sourced cotton by 2025.” As the brand continues to spread awareness about the importance of ecofriendly practices in the industry, it also recognizes how there is always room for improvement. Levi’s durable jeans are meant to last, and its values have shaped it into the global brand it is today.
