Some associations in fashion are just straight up indisputable. The little black dress is Chanel. The wasp waist is Dior. Le Smoking is Yves Saint Laurent. The first name one thinks of when one thinks of denim is Levi’s. There is a reason Beyonce name-checked the brand on her celebrated, Grammy-winning country album. Despite its undeniable American connotations, over the decades, denim has also become inextricably linked to Japan. If the Americans pioneered denim, the Japanese took it to a whole other level of obsession and craft.
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Now, those two pinnacles of denim-making have come together in magnificent fashion in the Levi’s Blue Tab collection. The brand’s latest launch signifies its most sophisticated expression of denim yet—rooted in the iconography of American workwear, elevated by unparalleled Japanese craftsmanship. The line isn’t just limited to your classic five-pocket jeans, but comprises tops, skirts, outerwear and tailoring. Fabrications range from tactile neppy denim and lightweight chambray to rich, inky selvedge denim.
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For womenswear, the emphasis is on polished denim tailoring enlivened with a restrained feminine touch—think a sleek, dark blazer paired with flattering wide-legged trousers, or a new way to do double denim, via a trucker jacket and a seamed skirt that curves in the front and is dramatically shaped in the back. There is the draped utility dress that is a softer, more womanly take on the classic mechanic’s suit. Other signature styles, such as the Barn jacket and the Carpenter trousers, come with contrasting chambray accents and linings. Denim shirts are pared back but still pack a visual punch thanks to subtle Western details on the yoke. In the brand’s bread-and-butter category of jeans, the most exciting addition is the new Carve fit, constructed with a straight outseam and a shaped inseam which creates a very subtle bell shape at the bottom.
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In the men’s department, highlights include the relaxed Marker Loose jeans reinterpreted in lightweight denim, as well as the boxy Scout jacket—the Blue Tab version comes in selvedge denim crafted in partnership with the famed Kaihara Denim Mill. A brand new style, the Blue Tab Type 1 jacket, is cropped at an interesting length and sports meticulously engineered sleeves. The Blue Tab collection is distinguished by a whole new branding that is actually based on archival Levi’s typography from 1925. How fitting that 100 years on, something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue have come together to birth this perfect union.
All photos: Courtesy of Levi's