TV Reviews : Levi’s as International Symbol in ‘Design Classics’

Among the several compelling elements of the British-made series “Design Classics” is how foreigners observe the mythic dimension in American business. Tonight’s edition on Levi jeans (Channel 28, 10:30 p.m.) is a revealing case in point.

Levi’s brings together three American phenomena--the romantic image of the West, the existential, youthful loner and the turning of a product’s name into a generic form, as in Jell-O, Kleenex or Xerox. Though the program misses this last aspect, it amusingly records how the marketing and design of Levi’s sought to fuse legendary icons with a longed-for past (Tex Ritter winning a barroom brawl in his clean-pressed denims) or with a rebel culture made attractive by its contrast with suburban conformity (James Dean in the ‘50s, revolutionary youth in the most recent decades).

We’re asked to look at Levi’s as both the uniform of a classless society and as a study in that American specialty, the malleability of product design. (Included is a wonderful montage of changes in the pants’ rear pockets through the decades.) Running through this witty and very European documentary prism--touched by an unmistakable bit of envy--is the commentary of Jancis Robinson, who could make the mating rites of pollywogs sound funny and ironic.