The Gold of Levi Strauss
San Francisco is hosting an exhibition that caught my eye.
It is called: The Legend of Levi Strauss.
The Levi Strauss in question here is somebody you may have sat upon. Sat upon his design and material that is because it is Levi Strauss the manufacturer of the blue jeans legend – something that is to be seen throughout the world.
So who was Levi Strauss?
Well, he was part of that ethnic group that was and is central to the American story – no, not a WASP, nor Irish or Italian or Polish, but German and Jewish.
Strauss was born in Bavaria. Aged just 17-years-old in 1829, his family left Germany for America. Arriving in New York he headed west for California. Here was a young man fully signed up to the America dream of land and space, of opportunity and money. He headed west with one aim to expand his family’s dry-goods business. It just so happened his move also coincided with something else happening out West, namely the Gold Rush. Young men, and not so young men all dreamed of the golden futures, Strauss was no different. They also needed clothing in which to pan for that gold.
The thing is young Levi wasn’t going to find gold, but he did find “gold” of a different type, a “gold” that was colored denim.
The iconic rivets that you will have seen and know so well if you have ever owned a pair of Levi’s were not the invention of Strauss. A tailor in Nevada is credited with that, but he introduced Strauss to the concept. The rivets are a small thing, but like so much in branding it became an identifying feature. These features were of little concern one imagines to the laborers both farm and industrial that were purchasing the materials to make into garments for wear at their work, however, at least in those early days.
Still, in 1872, it was a man called Jacob Davis who persuaded Levi to jointly file a patent for an “improvement in fastening pocket openings”. He also persuaded him to shift from selling simply fabric to made-to-measure trousers. One could say the rest is history. In fact, it is interesting to note that 100 years later, by 1972, blue jeans were de rigeur for anyone under 30 years old who considered themselves fashionable and just as necessary for many people older than that who were trying to stay “relevant” to the changing tastes of that era.
Strauss died in 1902. He was held in great esteem by both the local Jewish community of which he was considered a pillar, and the wider city of San Francisco on account of his philanthropic works. On his death, his business was left to his four nephews. They could not have anticipated the legacy that had been bequeathed by their uncle.
Eventually, blue jeans, but really Levi’s, would start to define American style. In the 20th century the blue jeans would be worn by those who embodied something of the myths of America, namely the cowboy and the rebel. Smartly, this appeal was both looking to an increasingly fabled past while, after the Second World War, pandering to an unruly future.
But, the product was good to start with, that always helps. Levi’s 501 jeans were tough wearing. Originally sold to farmer, mechanics and miners, they were also the jeans of choice for the ranch hands and riders of the West. This was the image that Hollywood would propel worldwide. The great Western heroes of the 30s and 40s were at some time astride a saddle in their Levi’s – be it Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, James Stewart or the most iconic of all, John Wayne.
By the 1950s, it was the turn of the rebels to wear Levi’s. Marlon Brando strutted about as a member of a motor cycle gang in The Wild One; or James Dean wore his while lost in the Hollywood Hills in Rebel Without A Cause. It wasn’t just the men wearing them either. Marilyn Monroe wore them in The Misfits – though they seemed to fit her pretty good. From the 1960s on with the Hippies and Woodstock, Levi’s were everywhere. Andy Warhol, that New York based high priest of counter-culture art immortalized them in his art. They have not lost that cultural currency till this day.
Needless, to say, Levi Strauss & Co became an American institution. The term “levi’s”, like the term “hoover” has taken such a place in the American psyche that these words signify by a brand title something which really has another name, namely a vacuum cleaner or a pair of jeans.
Levi’s are not just a pair of jeans though. Now they are a cultural export backed up with some canny marketing and the full weight of a corporate body. One suspects the board members of Levi Strauss & Co do not go around dressed as cowboys somehow.
It would be fair to say that somewhere on this planet as you read these words someone is wearing a pair of Levi’s.
This America adventure started in a small village in Bavaria. That adventure continued from New York to the West Coast and has now gone global.
2018 figures indicated that Levi Strauss & Co had revenues of $5.575 billion.
This American adventure was possible then, it’s still possible today.
Pick up the phone and place that request for a consultation with Mount Bonnell Advisors today.
