Levi’s and celebrity stylist Karla Welch collaborate to celebrate ‘501 Day’
Clothing collaborations — even the coolest ones — always feel like fleeting moments of fashion-brand cross-pollination. Old-school heritage brands team with artsy, edgy ones for a season — maybe three tops — before evaporating into the ether. The rare, super-successful one might last for a few years. But not many have lasted as long as the collaboration between a Bavarian-born dry goods merchant and a Reno tailor that’s set to notch 145 years and counting on May 20. It’s the partnership that birthed the blue jean as we know it today.
The two men involved were Levi Strauss (the dry goods merchant) and Jacob Davis (the tailor), and their names are on the patent for the copper-riveted pocket dated May 20, 1873. Over the last several years, San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. has observed the date annually as “501 Day” (though, technically, the 501 didn’t come into the picture until the 1890s) with events, promotions and celebrations. And this year, for the first time, it’s releasing a special collection to celebrate the birthday of the blue jean. It’s a collaboration with celebrity stylist Karla Welch, whose A-list clientele include Tracee Ellis Ross, Elisabeth Moss, Sarah Paulson and Justin Bieber.
The nine-piece Levi’s X Karla collection, the brand’s first partnership with a stylist, gives DIY- and 1970s-inspired tweaks to some of Levi’s most beloved items, including the denim trucker jacket (one version is trimmed in super-long white leather fringe; another cropped to resemble a bomber jacket); the Sherpa jacket (with the sleeves and collar turned inside-out); and the 501, which is served up in two variations (one with super-wide flare legs; another embellished with an eye-catching red patent-leather back pocket).
The ad campaign for the collection, which drops at select Levi’s stores and on www.levi.com on May 20, features a cadre of female celebrities in black-and-white portraits. They include Ross, Paulson, SZA, Hailey Baldwin and Amber Valletta. Some are Welch’s clients, others aren’t. “They’re all bad-ass women. That’s the thread that connects them,” Welch said at a media preview of the collection this week. “That, and they’re wearing Levi’s.” (Although modeled exclusively by women, the collection is “mostly unisex,” Welch says. “Like the Sherpa [jacket], for example,” she said, “and I’d say a sassy guy could wear those knickers.”)
At that preview, the stylist to the stars explained the inspiration behind some of the Welchified pieces, starting with the jeans she was wearing. The dark indigo fabric bore a white, almost chalk-stripe line down the front of each leg. “I based these pants on a pair Levi’s had bought from a private collector,” she said. “They had this crease from the way they were always folded and cuffed and probably ironed. You could really tell that these were this gentleman’s one pair of jeans. That was my absolute favorite discovery.”
The red patent-leather pocket that graces the back of a pair of 501s and a button-front shirt can be traced to her childhood. “I just thought about how iconic Levi’s advertising had been to me growing up,” she said. “I lived for the new Levi’s ads. There was always something about seeing an ass with that little red tab on it. So I thought, ‘How amazing would it be to take that red and just do a huge pocket?’ It’s purely about my love for Levi’s, putting a big red pocket on it.”
The trucker jacket trimmed in white leather fringe also has its roots in Welch’s childhood. “I love fringe but I was also obsessed with the blue and white of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders when I was a kid,” she said. “I think that must have been my first girl crush. I was like, ‘Oh my God, look how amazing they are!’ We [originally] wanted a different color fringe, [but] when we cut it super-long like that in white, I really loved it.”
Welch said the capsule collection is heavy on the dark indigo for a reason. “I wanted people to wear [in their jeans]. The beauty of a favorite pair of jeans is wearing them in over time,” she said. “I want someone in 100 years to find those [wide-leg 501s] at a swap meet and go, ‘Oh, look at these!’ [They’re] future vintage.”
And if she could point a time machine in the other direction and travel back to 1873 and collaborate with Strauss and Davis, what might she be inspired to make?
“I would have made a pair of Levi’s for women,” she said without a second’s hesitation. “I would have come up with a pair of pants for girls.”
The Levi’s X Karla 501 Day collection ($150 to $450) hits select Levi’s stores, Levi.com and Dover Street Market the same day Welch is scheduled to host a customization event at the Santa Monica Levi’s store, and the company has pledged to donate an unspecified amount (“It’s a flat sum that’s intended to exceed profits from the collaboration,” said Levi’s chief marketing officer Jennifer Sey) to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.
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For more musings on all things fashion and style, follow me at @ARTschorn.
