Inside the Vault – The Methodology of Levi’s Vintage Clothing
Levi’s is one of the most iconic and prolific labels of any company in American history. With hundreds of thousands of products under their belts since Levi’s inception in 1873, the brand has to do little more than look inward for inspiration.
Levi’s created an internal archival division to catalog and maintain this vast library of products, which houses not only old jeans but also marketing materials, textile samples, packaging, promotional items, and much more. And no one at the brand (outside of the archivists themselves) knows the archives better than Paul O’Neill, the senior designer for the line devoted to recreating select pieces from Levi’s past, Levi’s Vintage Clothing.
Levi’s invited us to tour Paul’s design office and the archives at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco to document the creation of their Spring Summer 16 collection. The inspiration this time around is the Levi’s employee baseball team, “Elesco”, which dates back to the 1880s.
We hope you enjoy the video above, which shows many of the original pieces that led to the Elesco collection as well as discussion with Paul and archivist Anastasia Fink on their work with the company.
Shot and directed by Ryan Lindow, produced by David Shuck and Nick Coe.
