The big names of the world's apparel have not had a good time in the past two years. According to the WTO, the future growth rate of global clothing will be 1Below 5%, it is the lowest level in the past three years.
In the chilling and poignant atmosphere, I didn't expect that the first batch of brands to publicly show weakness would be Levi's (Levi, a "century-old clothing giant".'sīŧã
Two days ago, it was publicly announced because of weak sales,There will be 10 to 15 percent layoffs globally.
Levi's currently has about 20,000 employees worldwide, and it is going to lay off two or three thousand people, hoping to save $100 million in costs by streamlining the process.
Levi's is known to have started as a denim and started making jeans in 1853. Among the clothing giants, it will take the lead in "softening" reality, which is both unexpected and expected. What was unexpected was that Levi's century-old family background did not hold up, and he needed to seek new opportunities in the form of large-scale layoffs. What is expected is that both men's and women's pants are no longer jeans. Young people still wear jeans, but they don't want expensive Levi's anymore. 
If you click on Levi's official website, you will find that they are currently promoting a series of costumes co-branded with Gundam, which have not yet been released. The light-colored denim of the classic 501 pants is printed with the head of the Gundam mecha, and when I sent it to a friend who is a Gundam enthusiast, he replied, "It's kind of like pajama pants."
And the list price of this co-branded jeans is - 999 yuan. 
The jeans** on Levi's official website are basically in two ranges: the parity range is in350-600 yuanLeft and right, barely belong to the range that ordinary people are willing to buy for daily wear, and they may be tempted when they want to buy a good pair of pants. **The range is in800-2000 yuan, which has basically been out of the scope of most people's daily consumption. 
People who don't know Levi's are a little puzzled when they see these thousand-dollar pricing estimates: Who would spend the money of a down jacket to buy a pair of jeans? Young people in their 20s today won't, but young people more than a decade ago did. In that era when the salary was only a few hundred or a thousand, save money to buy a 1499 Levi.
Nowadays, young people recall Levi's, and many people's memories only stay in "the brands they have seen in the mall".
But in the millennium, when Levi's first entered the Chinese market, it was known as the existence of "dream pants". Due to the early years of the main focus on men's pants, until recent years, some male fashion bloggers still refer to it as a "men's wardrobe must-have", recommending jeans with the title "If you can't afford Levi's, then you should buy it......â
It was able to have such a high status back then, one of the reasons why Levi's was indeed the originator of the jeans field.
In 1853, he began to make jeans, laying the foundation for a large number of jeans on the market.
Levi's divides jeans into six fits: skinny , slim , straight, body fit, taper and boy boyfriend. Among them, the straight-leg version of the 501 is known as the most worn fashion item in the past 140 years.
If you buy a pair of jeans on the street or online, you may see a small piece of red label on the trouser pocket, with a curved stitching pattern.
They were originally Levi's brand characteristics, but after a hundred years of imitation and playboard by garment factories around the world, many people have adopted them as common designs on jeans.
However, compared to the status of "the ancestor of jeans" in fashion history, there is another important reason why Levi's will attract millennials:
Denim was once seen as a symbol of cutting-edge trends around the world.
Denim pop coincided with the dawn of rock 'n' roll, with the Ramones, known as the greatest punk band of all time, making jeans their signature garment. 
From then until the millennium, jeans continued to be rebellious, cutting-edge in global trends. As a "century-old family", Levi naturally became one of the leaders. When Jobs took out the Genesis iPod at the press conference, he wore Levi's most classic 501 jeans.
When Levi set out to explore the Asian market, the spokesperson invited was Takuya Kimura, who was popular in East Asia at that time.
When entering the Chinese market, Jay Chou was invited to cooperate.
From these publicity paths, it is not difficult to see that Levi's status in the millennium is closer to that of a trendy brand, and it is a century-old trendy brand.
The same is true for denim style, which was more of a popular vane in those days than ordinary clothing in the eyes of the public today. In 2000, Mariah Carey wore a crystal butterfly top and low-rise jeans at VH1's Divas concert, and her look went down in fashion history. In the first two years, when Y2K and millennial babes became popular, butterflies and denim blue became one of the most common elements.
Unlike high-waisted pants, which are more popular to show off leg length, actresses around the world at that time had a pair of low-waisted jeans. American pop singer Jessica Simpson was even ridiculed by the venomous foreign media for her high-waisted pants and plump figure.
Male stars are not very convenient to use low-rise jeans to show their belly buttons, but they also uniformly fall in love with pencil pants-shaped skinny denim.
Kangxi is coming" once did a jeans special, and the name of that episode of the show was called"Every woman should have a pair of jeans!! â
Big S introduced in the show that there may be dozens or hundreds of pairs of jeans in his wardrobe, some of which he found the design interesting and bought and collected when he was traveling or on a business trip abroad, and he didn't even wear them.
At the same time, a clothing stylist was also invited to teach everyone how to choose jeans according to their figure.
Probably like the current fashion bloggers, after the wide-leg pants became popular, they posted posts about "how to choose wide-leg pants for pear-shaped and apple-shaped bodies" and "how long should you choose wide-leg pants with short legs".
The low-rise jeans that were popular back then were actually quite unfriendly to the average person, It looks good when worn on a good figure with smooth legs, and if you are not careful, it will look like five or five points, and your legs and stomach will protrude. Later, in 2019, The New Yorker criticized low-rise pants as extremely thin and neutral, just to highlight the hips and flat abdomen.
The niche hobby of "raising cattle" was also introduced to China at that time, and as the name suggests, this hobby is "raising a pair of jeans". After the jeans are produced, you can choose whether to wash them, and most of the jeans on the market are washed by the manufacturer, so that the pants are not easy to fade and deform after they reach the hands of consumers. "Cattle raising" enthusiasts like to buy unwashed jeans at home, dispose of them themselves, and "raise" them while wearing.
The texture and color of the jeans washed by the manufacturer have been fixed, and you can make unique and different colors and wrinkles by processing them yourself. There is some nonsense inside the "cattle breeding" enthusiasts:
The color is washed from dark blue to light blue, and the pattern worn out of the stall is called cat whiskers, and the lines squatting out of the back of the knees are called honeycomb.
Raising cattle" out of each pair of jeans is different,As a result, some second-hand "cow-raised" jeans will even sell for more expensive than new jeans, and Levi's is one of them. The new Levi may be in the tens of dollars, but the Levi's in the second-hand market after the "cattle breeding" treatment can rise to hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
Levi's own campaign pays tribute to his customers' hobby. In the commercial, a pair of jeans is re-cut and disposed of in the hands of several enthusiasts.
It can be said that Levi's has been at the forefront of pop culture for a long time.
Even in the past few years, a new generation of young fashion brands represented by Kanye has risen, and Levi still has a certain right to speak in fashion. For example, Denim Tears, a trendy brand that Kanye has brought goods many times, has chosen to cooperate with Levi's, which symbolizes the classics. The problem is that this is not the time for cowboys.
When denim style is popular and Levi is worn on the legs of Jay Chou and Takuya Kimura, not only trendy people and rich people in the fashion circle will be willing to pay for thousands of yuan of jeans, but ordinary people will also be attracted. During the millennium, many young people who wanted to follow the trend and experience a cutting-edge fashion saved up to buy a star with the same Levi. Wear it with a short T-shirt or tucked it into the waistband of your pants to reveal the red label and double horse logo on the waistband.
At that time, there were not many brands that focused on denim, and Levi's was a big brand known to his parents' generation.
When you wear it on the road, you will have some pride and vanity from the brand.
But as the denim trend slowly faded, denim gradually became a common textile fabric. The glorious past, which is closely linked to pop culture, can only raise Levi's fashion value, but it is difficult to help Levi's expand sales. The rapid development of the global apparel industry in the past three decades has made fast fashion brands such as Uniqlo, ZARA, and ONLY a major trend. The store sells clothes of any style and fabric, including denim clothing, which is customized and picked up from different clothing factories.
In contrast, Levi's, who focuses on cowboys, seems a little too professional and vertical.
Bloggers share different versions of Levi's jeans, source watermark.
For ordinary consumers, Levi's has lost the necessary reason to "not be able to do it without this brand".
It is no longer at the forefront of the trend, no longer the favorite of superstars, and the final advantage is that the version is good, **Levi's jeans have always been known for their sturdy and beautiful, and many people's Levi's have not worn out for ten years. Its "Double Horse" logo comes from the original advertisement, and neither horse could easily rip Levi's jeans. But the problem is that at the moment when there are many brands, where can you buy a good pair of pants for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and it doesn't necessarily have to be Levi's.
Not to mention the subtle differences in the fit of jeans, which can only be seen by trying and comparing offline. Nowadays, e-commerce is in power, shopping malls are declining, and it is difficult to see whether Levi's version is better and better than other brands. In 2010, Levi's had more than 500 stores in first- and second-tier cities in China.
In the first half of 2023, only 297 remained.
The regularization of denim style is only the long-term reason for Levi's declining influence. In recent years, Levi's decline is obviously due to another impact - the rise of sportswear represented by lululemon. A few years ago, a survey by Piper Jaffray, an American investment bank, on the cost of teenagers showed that young people began to be more willing to buy casual clothing such as Nike and lululemon.
Jeans, on the other hand, are considered to be stuffy, the fabric is stiff, and they are not comfortable in comparison.
There have also been bloggers on TikTok who collectively denounced skinny jeans, joking that it is better to run away from home than to wear these tight and stiff pants. Levi's CEO admitted in an interview with BloombergThe company is threatened by trends such as yoga pants, and there is a big difference between its own products and consumer needs.
The overtaking of lululemon and Nike is that they have successfully capitalized on the popularity of athleisure in recent years and turned sports clothing into a fashion.
Young people don't have to wear sweatpants or running shoes for physical education class, they can be a casual outfit that represents comfort and ease. You don't have to wear yoga pants when you're wearing them, they can be layered with shorts, skirts, sock covers, snow boots, and become part of your daily fashion.
The reason why lululemon's impact on denim brands such as Levi's is emphasized is that before yoga pants became popular as a fashion item, narrow jeans were considered one of the most figure-flattering pants. This advantage is that loose sweatpants, wide-leg pants, and cargo pants cannot be replaced, until the rise of slim yoga pants and shark pants.
Screenshot of lululemon's official website Levi's has also tried to get closer to today's trend, and in 2022, Levi's parent company, Levi's parent company, Levi Strauss & CoAnnounced its entry into the field of yoga wear. In 2023, he will collaborate with the cross-section of hole shoes, wanting to make the brand look younger and casual.
I also tried the "landmark check-in" that trendy brands love to play, and built a Levi's department store on Yuyuan Road in Shanghai's space) to carry out a series of cowboy culture experience activities.
But the results are not obvious.
If you want to open up, in fact, this is not a kind of return to basics.
The invention of Levi's jeans originated from the demand of a large number of blue-collar workers and miners who wanted stronger pants in the context of the gold rush in the United States in the 19th century. So the founder Strauss tried to make pants out of canvas and denim, and reinforced trouser pockets that were easy to wear with copper nails, and invented jeans. Jeans were originally meant to be durable pants for the common man, but now they are commonplace, but they are once again blending into the crowd. It's just that at the beginning, the gold diggers changed their jeans because they wore them for too long and finally wore them out. Nowadays, we change jeans more likely because we haven't worn them for too long, and after gaining weight, we find that we can't wear them.