The Archives

Lynn Downey, Historian

Thank you all so much for coming. I’m so excited that you’re here. The Levi Strauss and Company Archives is a treasure house of garments, documents, marketing materials, photographs, and artifacts: all related to the history of our company from 1853 to the present. It is here to serve as a laboratory for innovation and inspiration for everyone from marketing to design.

Jamie Sakamoto, Design Director

It’s the foundation of everything we do. I mean, the reason why we’re at Levi’s is because of 150 plus years of history.

Lynn Downey, Historian

We always enjoy it. When designers come here to work with the archival garments. We get to sit down with them. We get to go through the garments, more carefully than we get to do on a day-by-day basis. Oh yeah, look at this.

We create two collections of Levi’s vintage clothing every year in spring and fall. They are authentic replicas of garments from the Levi Strauss and company archives. Designers come here because this is the starting point. This is where it all begins.

Miles Johnson, Senior Designer

What our aim is, is to reproduce the garments exactly to the finest, finest detail. We studied them in-depth so that we work out exactly how to stitch them, the metal of the sundry, and the fabric itself as well.

Stacia Fink, Archivist

Gorgeous color. We acquired a beautiful pair of waist overalls that would date between 1906 and 1922. The bunkhouse shirt. And we also acquired this wonderful little kerchief side by side. The modern versions look like this. See how they reproduce the actual bunkhouse jean. The whiskering along the front of the garment has been reproduced, the way it puddled on his work boots or his cowboy boots, whatever he was wearing. And then we created the bunkhouse shirt, a total reproduction of this garment. Only the modern version has a tag inside with care instructions.

Miles Johnson, Senior Designer

At the end of the day, you look at the two garments, there’s not very much difference between the two, which is really great to get to that level.

Lynn Downey, Historian

Even the designers who create our most modern styles come to the archives for inspiration because not just about creating something that looks like it’s from the 30s or the 40s. Sometimes they will come here and get inspiration from the stitching on a pocket, from a button from 1919.

Jamie Sakamoto, Design Director

Every product that comes out of Levi’s has a soul, whether it’s the eighteen hundreds, the 1920s to 1975 to the 1980s. I mean, all of it is so relevant. We can be so inspired at any given time.

Lynn Downey, Historian

Some of our favorite and most treasured pieces in the archives, of course, happen to be a lot of the oldest ones. And sometimes it’s the ones that are more beat up than others are. Just everything that’s in here can serve as a springboard for design and inspiration.

Miles Johnson, Senior Designer

And when we come here, we just get so excited. I mean, I just want to be locked in here at night time. And, you know, go through all the boxes and, you know, Lynn would freak if she could hear me saying, I just want to try everything on.