Andy Warhol and Levi’s first collaborated back in 1984, when Warhol silkscreened images depicting the classic 501 jeans for an advertising campaign. Now, the tables have turned, and Levi’s is honoring the late artist by producing the Warhol Factory X Levi’s line, which launched last year. The new fall collection made an appropriatley splashy debut with a show at New York’s Gershwin Hotel as part of a tribute week called “Factory Craze”. Models were sent down the runway in full Andy mode, disguised in bleached-blonde wigs and black sunglasses. Inspired by his iconic 1978 shadow series, the collection features screenprinted T-shirts, plaid shirts, blazers, and an unforgettable pair of cherry-red vinyl jeans with contrasting gingham lining. But if these seem a little too statement-making for your tastes, the black skinny tuxedo trousers, high-cuffed jeans, and charcoal denim skirt will be closet stpales for far longer than 15 minutes.
Would Warhol have worn these clothes? “I would never purport to know what he liked,” says Michael Hermann, director of licensing for the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. “One thing about Andy Warhol, he was a very complicated guy.”
But consumers in their 20s and 30s are lapping up super-premium jeans, undeterred by prices that can go $200 and much higher. With embroidered pockets, distressed fabric and rhinestone detailing, it is a profitable but fickle market. “It’s crazy,” said Jamie Rohm, owner of Zipper Blues in Mt. Lebanon. “Jeans I used to get for $110 are $170.” But she gets very few complaints about price, and has people coming in asking for the $184 Blue Cult butt lifter and other high priced brands. But she draws the line at $300 to $400 jeans, which she doesn’t think would fly in suburban Pittsburgh.
“Everyone is doing premium denim,” Rohm said. “Celebrities like Puff Daddy and Posh Spice. It is getting to be like too much. Where is the exclusivity in it now? It is like, ‘What’s new? What’s new?’ Before something can be the next big thing, they are out.” But Rohm thinks it is smart for Levi’s to enter the fray with an assist from Andy Warhol. “You expect them to keep up. With a brand like Levi’s, you are the jeans of the world.”
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For such a small country, Sweden has a huge impact on the way we live. Sure, just about everyone owns something from IKEA, but there’s more to Swedish design than the blue-and-yellow behemoth: Sweden has a tradition of intelligent, understated silhouettes and exuberant graphic prints in its housewares that continues today with such companies as Asplund, Design House Stockholm, MOD: Modern Objects and Design, and Orrefors glassware. A host of young architects are storming the scene, such as Thomas Erikkson, also famous for his cross-shaped medicine cabinet, and Oscar Hafvenstein, whose firm is brilliantly named Boys Don’t Cry. The art scene, too, is worth checking out. One place to do so: Andyland.se, a new website founded by Alexandra Giertz and Ulrika Grönérus last October that showcases the work of emerging Swedish artists. “Swedes travel a lot and are influenced by different cultures and trends; the education system is generous,” says Giertz. “We are veryy design-conscious.”
