Levi Hopes Megastore Will Be Right Fit for the Young

The appeal of bluejeans has faded since the days when screen legend James Dean oozed coolness in his Levi’s and the Woodstock generation took on the world in ripped-up dungarees.

With khakis ruling the retail roost for casual clothing and designer jeans grabbing young fashion-conscious consumers, venerable Levi Strauss & Co. has seen its market shrink quicker than a T-shirt in a dryer.

This month, however, the world’s most famous bluejean maker struck back, opening a San Francisco megastore aimed at making Levi’s once again a must-have fashion item for youth with money to burn.

Putting the oomph back in its jeans sales is key for the 146-year-old San Francisco-based company, which got its start supplying jeans to the rugged prospectors who flocked to California in search of gold during the late 19th century.

In February, the privately held company announced its sales had fallen 13% to $6 billion last year from $6.9 billion, largely as a result of weak sales of jeans, and said it would close half of its 22 North American factories and lay off about 5,900 employees.

“It’s no secret that in the last few years we’ve taken our eye off the ball in terms of the youth market,” Danny Kraus, a Levi Strauss spokesman, said in an interview.

The store that opened Aug. 17 in San Francisco’s upscale Union Square shopping area blends the latest in technology, music and art to help put the buzz back in the brand name and to convince young shoppers that Levi’s are, indeed, hip.

The store will become Levi’s flagship, though company officials said that so far there are no plans to open branches in other cities. Nevertheless, it will offer a good gauge of Levi’s drive to renew its youthful appeal.

A mini-version of a popular San Francisco record shop sits above the entrance to the four-level, 24,000-square-foot store where a DJ spins the latest hits.

In an era when shopping and entertainment are increasingly the same, Levi has come up with novel ways to draw people to the store and help shoppers find just the right pair of bluejeans when they get there.

The quest for the elusive perfect fit, for example, can be taken on in an in-store hot tub where customers can soak in their new Levi’s, then dry off in a waist-high glass booth.

“It’s all about the customer coming here and having an experience,” Janie Ligon, a vice president at Levi Strauss, said in an interview.

The store also uses technology to add to the allure. Computers identify customers by their fingerprints, and other computers are used to scan shoppers and take their measurements for custom-made jeans.

There is also a huge selection of clothes, including a vintage clothing line whose prices start at $110 and go up to around $600.

And for those wanting to go really retro, shoppers can buy reproductions of the very first pair of Levi’s jeans--although the price will be somewhat higher than it was in 1873.

But whether the megastore is the remedy for Levi Strauss is anybody’s guess, said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report in Upper Montclair, N.J.

For many young people, bluejeans must now come from smaller labels with a hip cachet, with brands such as Fubu and Diesel pulling the dollars out of shopper’s pockets.

Among older customers, khakis, often associated with big Levi’s competitors such as Banana Republic and Gap, have taken over big chunks of the market for working apparel as well as leisure wear.

“Jeans used to be ubiquitous, universal and on everybody’s bottoms,” Barnard said. “By and large khakis have replaced jeans.”

Levi also has some bad retailing experiences to get over. Past forays into the cutthroat market have been largely unsuccessful because Levi Strauss did not offer much more than could be had in the department store down the road, failing to identify itself as a shopping destination, Barnard said. The new mega-store looks like a step in the right direction for reinvigorating the Levi’s name.

“To try to promote a store today with a fashion image in light of merchandise, which for the most part is being shunned by young people today, is a gallant effort,” he said. “They need to do something to reinvigorate themselves and revitalize their business.”