VINTAGE LVC CATALOGS

I’ve just been looking through my look books and there is an A4 size catalogue that was produced for the Fall/Winter collection, Banned USA.

Gumball100 wrote: There is a mention earlier in the thread about problems with the 2013 collection/book and the books being burned. I have a copy of the book and it’s beautiful. What’s the story about this?

We had a riveted pair of pants that were found in a 1874 trash dump, these pants were constructed like Levi’s, but they
Had blank rivets and were made of light weight 2x1 denim. It took almost 15 years to find evidence, that would then
Back up what we always thought was true about what a 1873 pair of Levi’s looked like- We found two pieces, first was a
Piece of duck Levi, it had blank rivets ( usually Levi rivets are stamped - pat May 1873 LS &Co S.F) This duck piece luckily
Had branded Levi Strauss suspenders buttons...so proof that 1873-74 Levi’s had blank rivets. The second piece we found was a waistband Levi piece, with branded buttons and branded rivets, most important, this piece was made of light weight
2x1 denim....During the 1870’s, most makers at that time were making 2x1 denim pants- now we had proof that Levi was making them too.

We found these Levi pieces in 2011, we finally had enough evidence to back up what we thought all along, the 2x1 denim pant, with blank rivets and no arcs on the back pocket, was a Levi pant....Now this goes against What was coming out of the Levi Archives then and now. Starting in 2012, our friends at LVC, wanted to make our 1873 2x1 Levi pants, so without checking with the Levi archives first...LVC proceeded to start making our pants, they had thousands of yards of special denim, milled in Japan- then they made the look books with the story of how they were found....the look books were finished and printed, the fabric was made, and sample pants were made.

At this point- the project was almost done, then the Archive finds out about the project ( I assume the Levi Lawyers catch wind of the project?) This is where things go south- the head designer gets called into a meeting, his job was on the line,
The project was halted, the look books were destroyed ( but this was after at least 200 books made it out to Europe)
Head designer keeps his job- so that’s most of the story- in 2013 we had a meeting with the head of the Levi Archives- Mr
Randal- Nonriveted and I, plus a few Levi employees met to discuss our 1873 Levi’s, we brought the pants for the head of the archives to look at....The meeting was supposed to be just me and Lynn ( head of the archives) Lynn and I had different opinions on Levi history- there was no F-ing way I was going to meet alone with her.....so I brought some friends.

Edited by Sansome - 11 May 2020 at 11:34am

@sansome, a very interesting story. thanks for sharing! i think i luckily hold a copy of the books.  always wondered why that pair never made it to the stores, never was seen on ebay etc... i love the detail of watchpockt rising up the half of the waistband btw.


Edited by Sympathy-4-The-Denim - 11 May 2020 at 12:11pm

any pics of the 1873 pants (or repros?)