Is eco no longer fashionable at the world’s leading denim brand? We don’t know why we were motivated to do so, but we walked into the Levi’s store on Broadway in NYC’s Soho at lunch and remembering that we’d ranted about their lackluster social messaging before, we thought we’d check out their eco range. But we couldn’t find them. In fact, they aren’t on sale anymore there.
The press release that was published when the Eco range was announced in November 2006 said:
“As the inventor of the jeans category, it is critical for us to continue to innovate with our products and within the category itself in order to drive positive change,” said Robert Hanson, Levi’s® U.S. brand president. Building off the brand’s world-famous product guarantee, Quality Never Goes Out of Style, Hanson added, “Given our history as a leader in responsible manufacturing and business practices, this initiative is about quality and responsibility never going out of style. With Levi’s® Eco, consumers who seek to minimize their personal impact on the environment can choose jeans that demand less from the environment without forfeiting the style or quality they’ve come to expect from the Levi’s® brand.”
When we asked about the jeans in the store, the staff didn’t know what we were talking about and eventually pointed us to the Capital E range (which may have replaced Eco we suppose - maybe eco wasn’t innovative enough for Fall 2007…). Eco Jeans are still available on the Levi’s site.
UPDATE: Levi’s responded to this article. You can see their response here.
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Levi’s Eco jeans are actually sold in France.
Eco denim is actually a big deal because Carhartt propose eco jeans too
Simon (from Paris)
August 29th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Well they always said it was going to be subtle:
“Levi’s® jeans made with organic cotton will be available in a range of popular fits and finishes and marked with a few subtle identifiers. Jeans made with all, or a significant percentage of, organic cotton will be signified as “Levi’s® Eco” and feature an embroidered lowercase “e” inside the front pocket, or at the bottom of the right leg of each jean. A natural colored canvas “Levi’s®” tab and “Two Horse Patch” made from 100% organic fabric as well as natural colored pocket stitching of the brand’s famous arcuate will also indicate the jeans are made from organic cotton.”
They do stock organic cotton jeans anyway, in the red range & also within capital e (which is handmade).
http://eu.levi.com/search/organic?pg=1
But you are right that the “eco” word itself isnt much in evidence although they kept to the plan to use a green coloured levi’s logo.
Someone in the jeans market should really lead on this issue; jeans are if made from organic cotton a really good environmental friendly choice in that they are designed to be worn until worn out & also prob dont get washed that often. But I doubt it would be Levi’s given their history of unfortunate incidents involving supplier factories (like the one that turned out to be using unpaid labour in Chinese prisons).
September 2nd, 2007 at 4:09 am