The Reference Council: Levi's Made & Crafted

The Reference Council catches up with Levi’s new emerging diffusion label, Made & Crafted. With a similar aesthetic to Levi’s Vintage Clothing, the differences and similarities between the two as well as insight in the “XX” Made & Crafted collection are brought to light.

What separates made & Crafted from LVC?

Good question. LVC looks to the past, to recreate iconic garments from Levi’s history. Made & Crafted comes from the same origins but projects forwards. It’s a modern collection with traditional sensibilities. If you like, M&C is the yin to LVC’s yang.

An example of this would be our use of Pima cotton, with its origins in Peru and it’s development by seed selection by the cotton plantations on the Carolina coast (hence the term Sea-Island cotton), which we mix with Micro Modal from Japan. Micro Modal was developed for the luxury lingerie industry and it’s a fibre that is produced from sustainably managed Beech tree forests. The Modal adds drape to our women’s’ tees. Both the Pima & Modal fibres are ultra fine and soft. Again it’s a marriage of old and new. Nature & Science.

Earlier you mentioned as a source of inspiration the Internet. I am really on the fence about the Internet when it comes working in design – from personal experience I have used it but quickly encountered some severe limitations in actual “inspiration”. As a reference tool I think it is useful but I have always preferred travelling for inspiration.How does work for you with your work? If travel has an impact on your work where do you like going? Is it the destination that is inspiring or the journey?

The Internet – I’d agree with you, it’s a great reference tool – just think the fingertip access to so much information is absolutely amazing to people with nerd tendencies like me. Much of the time it may just point me in the direction of some other source of research such as buying books on Amazon, going to museums & galleries and travel.

Travel is a great education. To repeat the popular Mark Twain quote,” Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, all foes to true understanding”. Travel has a profound impact on the work we do at Levi’s XX. (I travel a lot – maybe 90+ flights a year and like I mentioned before, the group of people we have come from many nationalities and all are well travelled).

I’ve just got back from a week’s road trip in Italy. Driving up a little winding road, passing the grape vines that surround the workshop of leather jacket maker like rows of barbed wire, and talking to the gentle brother and sister who run the business is extremely rewarding. Collaborating with these wonderful people, you learn a lot. You go through the processes of vegetable and chrome tanning and it’s effects on each skin and also find out the same people make their own wine and olive oil. There’s real care and love being put into the product, which we appreciate greatly.