Levi Strauss is closing half its U.S. plants largely, the analysts say, because its trademark jeans have fallen out of favor with the current teenage generation, and the fall has been coming for some time.
I think I know why.Once, owning a pair of Levi's took work and dedication. A pair of Levi's in the store was as supple as sheet metal. A kid who fell over in the changing room had to be levered erect by his pals, rather like a miniature re-enactment of raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
Selection was important and required considerable expertise in calculating shrinkage. Brand-new Levi's did not fit; that was up to the customer. The preferred choice was to put them on; soak them with a garden hose; and then sit in the sun until they dried. Then the jeans had to be washed several times, by themselves, of course, because the rich, deep blue dye tended to color anything it touched without appreciably fading itself.
Levi's were originally worn with a cuff folded twice, later, just once, and finally no cuff at all. The twice-folded cuff was tough because it had to be worked until it was flat and just so, otherwise the cuff stood out from the ankle like a little hoop. Once the cuff was worked in, it never unfolded.
Levi's had to be worn for quite awhile before they were ready for school or weekend socializing; a wise teenager kept three or four pairs in various stages. When a pair of Levi's was finally broken in, they were pants perfection; they were indisputably yours with a body-hugging memory and fade marks that outlined your wallet and car keys. A well-fitting pair of Levi's was an individual accomplishment. In a battle of supremacy between man and garment, man had won.
In the 1950s, when teenagers were first singled out as a social subset to be worried about, Levi's were considered an early warning of "bad influence." My high school actually banned them. Adults thought blue jeans were a copycat affectation picked up from movies such as "Blackboard Jungle," "The Wild One" and "Rebel Without A Cause." In fact, their popularity was due to the peculiar social osmosis among kids: You wore them because everybody else who counted also wore them. Besides, "Levi's" was the common noun, not "blue jeans."
Hitchhiking behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s, I found that Levi's were not only an American icon but the object of incredible desire by huddled masses yearning to be cool. People would try to buy your Levi's right off your body, right there in the street, risking all kinds of trouble with the secret police. It was hard not to pity them, being condemned to wear the shoddy output of the Lenin Trouser Works, ill-fitting pants so shoddy they flapped. Levi's never flapped.
I think the beginning of the end was when you no longer had to earn the right to wear Levi's. The company came out with pale imitations described as pre-shrunk, stonewashed, relaxed fit. With the old Levi's you were the designer; now it's somebody named Tommy Hilfiger or Calvin Klein.
I still wear Levi's, and market analysts say that may be one of the company's problems, that the parents and grandparents of today's teenagers are too identified with traditional Levi's. One fashion trend watcher quoted a survey that found only 7 percent of teenagers thought Levi's were "cool." That's OK. The other 93 percent are dorks anyway.
A well-broken-in pair of Levi's is a classic. Cargo pants and those mid-calf baggy shorts are today's version of bell-bottoms and leisure suits; their wearers will be ridiculed by their own children one day. Serves them right.