Levi’s® Vintage Clothing’s new collection, Project Survival, is an homage to the student activists who sparked a revolution that led to the world’s first Earth Day in 1970. We go behind the designs with Levi’s® Vintage Clothing Design Director Paul O’Neill.
THE INSPIRATION
“We wanted to celebrate one of the early movements for environmental justice. All over university campuses during the ’60s, groups were popping up to promote healthy environmental practices. We were really inspired by these young students who cared so much and strove to make a change. Here we are 50 years later, still fighting for the planet and still trying to get people to listen. The first thing we did, after studying photographs of what these kids were wearing, was to go into the Levi’s® Archives, where we have thousands of original garments. We scoured through the right periods and pulled out the pieces that would help us tell this story.”
WE WERE REALLY INSPIRED BY THESE YOUNG STUDENTS WHO CARED SO MUCH AND TRIED TO MAKE A CHANGE.
– PAUL O’NEILL, DESIGN DIRECTOR, LEVI’S® VINTAGE CLOTHING
THE CLOTHES
“The late 1960s, to me, feels like the first time people start to dress like how everybody dresses now. People were starting to get away from dressing like their parents. You see the college kids, and it became a much more dressed-down look with t-shirts and worn-in jeans and sportswear. A kind of effortless look that just naturally evolved. It was the first time that Levi’s® started to focus more on youth. White Tab™ was about collegiate style — a sort of Ivy League look with slim, straight silhouettes. In the mid-’60s, we began to see the first skinny jeans, which we reproduced for this collection. In 1969, Levi’s® started Orange Tab™, a denim collection with a fashion focus and a California hippie kind of cool, where we see things like bell-bottoms. This collection embodies both.”
IN THE ’60S, YOU SAW THE FIRST Levi’s® SKINNY JEANS AND CUSTOMIZED BELL-BOTTOMS.
– PAUL O’NEILL, DESIGN DIRECTOR, LEVI’S® VINTAGE CLOTHING
THE SHOOT
“We're always trying to take documentary-style photographs, to recreate the scenes and just be like a fly on the wall. We don't want the models paying attention to the camera, so we set up scenes and get them to mix naturally and just try to capture it. For the Seasonal Portraits in our Lookbook, we take a cross-section of the local community in whichever town or city we’re shooting in and represent them through a series of portraits of those people wearing clothing from the collection.”
Looking for a Stitch-by-Stitch reproduction of the first Levi’s® skinny jeans, “customized” bell-bottoms, authentic Sta-Prest® pants or a 14-wale jacket? Find them all in Levi’s® Vintage Clothing’s 2022 collection.