For decades, the Levi’s® brand has maintained an unwavering position at the center of culture, becoming — and staying — a household name for consumers of all walks of life, from students to artists, fashion lovers to athletes. Music artists and music lovers, in particular, have been a key demographic for the Levi’s® brand, with products such as the iconic 501® jean serving as the wardrobe of choice for countless musicians and concert goers around the globe.
Read on to discover some of the ways in which music and the Levi’s® brand have been interwoven throughout history as the thread that connects artists and consumers to events and key social and cultural moments.
Worn by Icons
The Levi’s® brand entered the music scene in earnest in the 1930s, when cowboy balladeers wore Levi’s® jeans in Hollywood Westerns and American singer Bing Crosby dressed in a Levi’s® denim suit. It was a perfect match and bands and fans alike have worn Levi’s® over the decades. In 1971, the Rolling Stones released their Sticky Fingers album with a controversial cover that featured a pair of Levi’s® 505® zippered jeans. Rock legend and icon Freddie Mercury’s 501® jeans, dating to the late 1970s, are featured in the LS&Co. Archives. In 1984, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA album cover featured the Boss himself wearing a pair of Levi’s® 501® jeans. And by the 1990s, Nirvana lead vocalist, Kurt Cobain, wore Levi’s(R) 501(R) jeans as part of his signature grunge look.
Music fans, including followers of music subcultures like punk and heavy metal, have also adopted Levi’s® products, personalizing Levi’s® looks such as battle vests to pair with a pair of Levi’s® jeans as their signature concert attire.
Helping Bring Music to Fans
Levi Strauss & Co. later made relationships with the music world more official by sponsoring musicians and groups like David Bowie and Huey Lewis and the News to help bring their music to fans. In 1995, Levi Strauss Japan sponsored the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge Tour. By the 2000s, the brand was partnering with the likes of Destiny’s Child, Christina Aguilera and Lauryn Hill.
We’ve been leaning even more into this commitment in recent years. Last year, Levi’s® partnerships spanned global music festivals, including Lollapalooza India and hip-hop festival Rolling Loud, both within the U.S. as well as internationally in Thailand, Portugal and Germany. This year, the brand showed up in a big way at iconic festivals like Coachella and returned as an official sponsor of Japan’s largest outdoor rock festival, the annual Fuji Rock Festival.
Today, Levi’s® and music are still synonymous among musical icons — from Beyoncé, who rocked the stage in Levi’s® cutoffs at Coachella 2018 and named a song after the brand this year, to Taylor Swift, who was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine wearing Levi’s® jeans in 2014 and sang about “dancin’ in your Levi’s®” in her 2020 hit song, Cardigan.
By meeting consumers where they are and showing up at relevant cultural moments around the world, the Levi’s® brand continues to prove that Levi’s® clothing has, and will continue to be, the wardrobe of choice for the world’s originals.
First photo: On the left, heavy metal fans wearing Levi’s® at Starlight Theater in Burbank, CA 1984. Source: LA Times Photo Archives (Collection 1429), Charles E. Young Research Library Special Collections, UCLA. On the right, Justin Timberlake NSYNC Levi’s® custom vest (ca 2000).
Second photo: Levi’s® at Fuji Rock.
