Item 2017.040 - Levi's Jean Paul Gaultier Denim jacket

Levi’s is a brand of jeans produced by American company Levi Strauss & Co. The company was established in San Francisco by German Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss (1829–1902) in 1853, originally to sell dry goods and garments manufactured on the East Coast. They began supplying ready-made work trousers, called ‘waist overalls’, out of cotton indigo-dyed denim across the American West. They were worn by miners, mill workers, railroad workers, lumberjacks and cowboys. Jacob W. Davis (1831–1908), a Jewish tailor in Reno, Nevada, sourced denim cloth from the company and developed a process to strengthen stress points on the garments by adding copper rivets to the bespoke overalls he was making. Davis partnered with Levi Strauss & Co. to expand production, and in 1873 they were granted a joint patent for the innovation. In 1890 the overalls were given the production lot number 501, the name of the design model still in production.
From the 1920s denim jeans began expanding beyond the market for heavy work wear; cowboy films produced by Hollywood exposed the garment to a wider audience; during the Second World War, American servicemen took Levi’s jeans with them abroad. Film was again pivotal in the 1950s for Levi’s, as movies such as The Wild One (1953) starring Marlon Brando and Rebel Without a Cause (1955) featuring James Dean created an association of the label with youth, rebellion and cool. Levi’s had become sought-after worldwide. In the early 1950s, the company opened their first UK factory in Acton, London (moving to Northampton in 1973) and by 1954 Bill Green, owner of the pioneering Vince Man’s Shop in Soho, London, was selling unshrunk Levi’s both in his shop and by mail order. The company became a global fashion brand through the 1960s and 1970s; 1980 saw 25 million pairs of jeans sold in the UK, up from 6 million pairs in 1970, with Levi’s dominating the market. However, later in the 1980s saw a drop in sales prompting the company to commission a series of influential advertising campaigns in the UK and, in 1985, the £4 million pan-European television and cinema spots ‘Bath’ and ‘Laundrette’ for Levi’s 501. June 1986 saw British street style magazine BLITZ commissioning twenty-two designers to customize a Levi’s denim trucker jacket to raise money for charity. Designers of the jackets included Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano and Katharine Hamnett and were displayed for three months at the V&A Museum.

Launched in 1999, the Levi’s RED collection drew inspiration from the brand’s history and refined it into a product with a streamlined, minimalist design aesthetic. The company introduced Levi’s Engineered Jeans in the same year, which deconstructed and redesigned the standard five-pocket jeans for comfort and mobility. In 2000 Levi’s formed a design research label, the Industrial Clothing Division+ (ICD+) in collaboration with Philips Electronics and Italian designer Massimo Osti. Philips had been focusing their research and development on a project called Philips Wearable Electronics, and the ICD+ range was the first outcome available to consumers. Levi’s has also collaborated with Junya Watanabe, Supreme, Heron Preston, Beams, Google and Lego.
Sources: Michael Harris, Jeans of the Old West: A History (Atglen. PA: Schiffer, 2016); Emma McClendon, Denim: Fashion’s Frontier (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press with the Fashion Institute of Technology, 2016); Paul Jobling, Advertising Menswear: Masculinity and Fashion in the British Media Since 1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Daniela Facchinato, Ideas from Massimo Osti (Bologna: Damiani, 2012); Iain R. Webb, As Seen in BLITZ: Fashioning ’80s Style (Woodbridge: ACC, 2014); The Guardian.

Jean Paul Gaultier (b. 1952) presented his first womenswear collection in 1977, launching his menswear line in 1984 with a collection titled ‘Boy Toy’ featuring men in variations of the French marinière striped jumper. As part of the Spring Summer 1985 ‘And God Created Man’ collection, Jean Paul Gaultier presented several models wearing kilts, which the media erroneously reported as the introduction of skirts for men. More than 3,000 were sold by the brand that season. In 1986 the first Jean Paul Gaultier store opened in Galerie Vivienne, Paris.

The label launched the Junior Gaultier line in 1988. Designed as a lower-priced diffusion range from Jean Paul Gaultier, it was deliberately aimed at a youth market. More than 450,000 garments were sold in the first season at the boutique on Rue de Jour, Paris. In 1989 the Japanese company Onward Kashiyama took a 60 per cent stake in Junior SpA, the Italian manufacturer of the Junior Gaultier line. In 1994 Gaultier ended the licensing deal with Onward Kashiyama and discontinued the line. Gaultier signed a new licensing deal with Stile Moda of Italy to produce a new line for men and woman called JPG. In 1992 the Gaultier Jean’s label was launched. In 2004 the Gaultier Jean’s line was manufactured by Euro Cormar and renamed Jean’s Paul Gaultier. In 1999, Hermès International paid US$23.4 million for a 35 per cent stake in the company. In 2008, they acquired an additional 10 per cent of the business. In 2011, the Catalan group Puig acquired 45 per cent of Jean Paul Gaultier from Hermès International and 15 per cent from the founding couturier.

It was not until 2002 that the first Jean Paul Gaultier boutique was opened in the United States on Madison Avenue, New York. The company’s first fragrance for men, Le Male, was launched in 1995, followed by GAULTIER² in 2005 and Kokorico in 2011. A men’s cosmetic and skincare line called Tout Beau, Tout Propre appeared in 2003. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presented a major retrospective of the designer, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk in 2011. It then toured Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid, Rotterdam, Brooklyn, London, Paris, Munich, Melbourne and Seoul. In 2014 the Jean Paul Gaultier prêt-à-porter menswear and womenswear lines were closed. The label was revived in 2021 with Florence Tétier (b. 1983) appointed as the new creative director.

Sources: British Vogue; Financial Times; Jean Paul Gaultier, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, ed. Thierry-Maxime Loriot (Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Abrams, 2013); WWD.