Everything you need to know about: Levi’s

Levi’s is an established brand famous for its rise from American workwear to general apparel with denim as their main focus. Their most well-known product is the 501® jeans, a straight leg, button fly jeans; symbol for freedom and pioneering.

Origins

In 1853, immigrant Levi Strauss had just opened a dry goods store in San Francisco and noticed later the demand for durable workwear. Therefore, he and tailor Jacob Davis created the first manufactured jeans in 1873, the famous 501® jeans. Levi’s as a high-quality denim brand was born and would later establish itself as socially progressive, authentic and inclusive.

Evolution

During the next 112 years Levi’s products became so popular that the brand expanded its business throughout Europe and Asia starting in 1965 and became public in 1971. Later, in 1983 the first original Levi’s® Stores were opened in Europe, followed by the launch of 527 more locations over the next few years. This success lasted for two decades until the brand’s profit started to diminish in the late 1990s which led them to close several manufacturing plants and lay off more than a third of their workforce. For over a decade, Levi’s was facing financial difficulties and only became profitable again in 2007. As many other companies during the pandemic, their net revenue has gone down by sixty-two percent in May 2020 due to decreased sales which they counter-acted with the acquisition of the yoga apparel brand Beyond Yoga.

News

Nowadays, Levi’s holds approximately 16,600 employees and is sold in over 50,000 retail locations across 110 countries worldwide. The label’s net revenue by the end of 2022 amounted to 6.2 billion dollars total. Their focus for 2023 will be handling the inflation, recession and shifted consumer spending. Diversifying their portfolio will be another focus point for Levi’s when it comes to revenue as it generated profitable growth in the previous year. Overall, the brand also set itself the long-term goal of becoming a net-zero emissions firm by 2050.