Analysis: As Levi's have shown over the years, brands become icons by telling powerful cultural stories and addressing societal tensions
By Dee Duffy and Katriona Flynn, TU Dublin
How does that Levi’s ad still reside in our heads four decades on? You know the one. A cool guy (Nick Kamen) walks into a laundrette, strips down to his crisp white boxer shorts and throws his Levi 501s into the washing machine as onlookers gape in bewilderment. All of this set to the smooth tune of Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Inspired by our recent Desert Island Dress podcast episode with Dublin-born photographer Rich Gilligan, we wondered how brands embed themselves in our psyche, memories, and identity, solidifying themselves as cultural icons in our worlds.
In 1853, Levi Strauss started a clothing company in San Francisco. A German-Jewish immigrant, he sold hardwearing denim trousers to miners seeking their fortune. That now infamous Levi logo, with two workhorses pulling a pair of their jeans in opposite directions, originated from basic necessity – to be recognisable to illiterate clientele. How can this brand name and logo of such humble beginnings, still be of such cultural relevance today?
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By the mid-1950s, Levi's 501s had become characteristic of rebellious youth culture in America. With the rapid mediatisation of popular culture, and actors such as Marlon Brando (The Wild One) epitomising cool inblack leather jacket, white t-shirt and blue denim Levi’s (iconically astride a Harley Davidson motorbike), younger generations embraced the brand.
Levi’s became so emblematic of Western culture that they were banned in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. As disaffected Soviet youth caught glimpses of the American Dream infiltrating the Iron Curtain via popular cultural references in movies, music, and fashion, they appropriated the blue denim jeans as their defiant symbol for freedom.
Earning heritage brand status, Levi’s remained emblematic of the counterculture era throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with flared Levi jeans being a staple symbol of the hippie movement. But by the 1980s, the Levi-wearing youth were now dads - and it's not cool if Dad is wearing it.
From Future Proof, how did Levi's jeans become so popular?
What could Levi’s do to regain relevance? According to Douglas Holt's work on cultural branding, iconic brands achieve their status by serving as cultural symbols that address deep-seated societal tensions. When that infamous Levi’s Launderette advert launched, what contentious issue could the Levi brand be backing, to revitalise its image? Enter, the new man.
Levi’s recognised the shifting presentation of masculinity, from something traditional, rugged and no-frills to a more self-aware, fashionable and openly desirable male figure. Through the 1985 launderette ad, they repositioned the Levi’s brand as a cultural symbol for this new man, again gaining cultural relevance to a new generation of stylish young men. Sales skyrocketed by 800% following the cinematic, story-led commercial.
With Holt’s understanding of cultural branding in mind, I did a doubletake entering Selfridge's department store on London's Oxford Street last month on spotting cultural icon Beyonce clad in blue denim Levi’s, in a storefront takeover campaign. So many icons, so many questions!
I was intrigued to understand the motivation behind the collaboration. If brands become icons by telling powerful cultural stories, addressing societal tensions and leading cultural movements, what might these be in the context of this Levi's x Beyoncé collaboration?
The answer can be found in the title of the multi-chaptered campaign, REIIMAGINE. Levi’s and Beyoncé co-create a retake of that 1985 Launderette campaign. One where Beyoncé reenacts the cool protagonist confidently removing her Levi 501s, stripping down to her white boxer shorts and cowboy hat, to the amusement of onlookers in the launderette. The advert is underscored by ‘LEVII’S JEANS’, a song from Beyoncé’s 2024 Cowboy Carter album.
This campaign can be seen as reframing multiple cultural myths. It is reclaiming the cowboy archetype from the traditional, white male role, instead portraying a woman, a black woman, stepping into the frame, taking centre-stage wearing the all-American cowboy hat. While this symbolic representation takes traditional gender portrayals to task, there’s another cultural intervention at play.
The Cowboy Carter album challenges the historical narrative of country music as being ‘white music’. Over decades, white music industry executives are accused of erasing black artists from the hillbilly music scene. This album reimagines what country music is, to include hugely influential black music traditions. Tellingly in February this year, Beyoncé was the first black woman ever to win Country Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.
The Americana myth held a nostalgic vision of the old frontier, where rugged, individualistic, white explorers and cowboys made their fortunes through honest hard work and self-reliance. This myth was further propagated through cultural texts such as movies and kid’s magazines, celebrating the white cowboy figure, while othering Indigenous communities and often excluding marginalised voices of women and enslaved people of colour.
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It is this nostalgic, albeit mythical era that is invoked in the US political slogan ‘Make America Great Again’. This is problematic in that it incites a fictitious past, a cultural narrative that backs the white, male, aggressive protagonist while eradicating marginalised voices.
It is said that history is understood and remembered depending on who gets to tell the story. By stepping into her crystal-embellished Levi 501s, donning her cowboy hat and embedding her image in ‘quintessential American iconography’, Beyoncé is asserting her power to reframe the Americana myth and perhaps be ‘that’ ad running through our head in years to come.
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Dr Dee Duffy is a Senior Engagement Manager in the Retail, Tourism and Hospitality Sectors at the Enterprise Academy at TU Dublin. Katriona Flynn is a Lecturer in Fashion and Luxury Goods Management at the School of Art and Design at TU Dublin. They are the hosts of the Desert Island Dress podcast.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
