Vintage Levi's Ads │ Levi's Through the Years

Vintage Levi's are one of my favorite items to wear, collect, sell, and research. And over the years after researching each pair I've found to sell or wear,  it's just as much fun to see what they looked like when they came out originally. 

Here's a nice sample of vintage Levi's ads (and here's one of the oldest ad that isn't a paper ad at all) that make me smile and only serve to make me want to find even more vintage Levi's items.

I love this piece- something attached to the actual vintage denim item.
What a great historical piece of ephemera.

I recently finished a book about Levi Strauss. It was written by a former Levi's archivist named Lynn Downey. She is a beautiful writer and is up there in quality with any other comparable best-selling historical biographer. 

With me being a northern Californian, and one who lives in Gold River (an area that was a huge part of the gold rush), reading about how Strauss came to America to be a part of the gold rush was enlightening. And something I'd been wanting to know about for years. 

I am shocked by the origins of Strauss and how little he came with to America from Bavaria. The story Downey weaves filled with his background - along with the origins of the Levi's brand and how it came into being - is fascinating. 

I will probably be buying the book in print it's that good. I highly recommend it if you're even the slightest bit interested in the history of Levi's. The denim part of Strauss' dry goods business began in 1873 and over 151 years later, it still has a strong presence, not only in American culture but in the fashion community worldwide.

As a counterpart to the book, check out the Levi's Strauss Archive blog. It's years of blog posts about the history of the company and, my favorite part, the acquiring of rare vintage denim pieces.

 

It's a gold mine of information.

-Heather