Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss & Co.
I  INTRODUCTION
Levi Strauss & Co., apparel manufacturer based in San Francisco, California. Levi’s, the denim blue jeans invented by the company’s founder in 1873, became one of the world’s most popular clothing items.
II  EARLY HISTORY
The company was founded by Levi Strauss, who arrived in the United States from Buttenheim, Bavaria, in 1847. In 1853 Strauss sailed to San Francisco to join his sister and brother-in-law in a dry-goods business. In 1872 Strauss received a letter from Jacob Davis, a Nevada tailor who was one of his regular customers. In his letter, Davis told Strauss about his invention of riveting the pocket corners of work pants to reinforce the points of strain. Davis didn’t have the money necessary to file a patent on his invention and offered to go into partnership with Strauss if Strauss would pay the fees. The patent was granted to both men in 1873 and blue jeans were born.
The copper-riveted waist overalls became very popular among miners, cowboys, lumberjacks, and others who needed comfortable, durable pants. Strauss opened factories on Market Street and Fremont Street in San Francisco. In 1880 the company, which still sold other dry goods, reported $2.4 million in sales. Levi’s were sold to retailers for about $1.50 a pair. In 1890 Strauss and his four nephews officially incorporated the company. Strauss died in 1902. In 1906 an earthquake and fire devastated San Francisco, and the company’s headquarters and factories were destroyed. The company built a new plant on Valencia Street that is still in operation today. For the next dozen years the company made few changes. Because Levi’s sold mostly to workers in the western United States, the company had trouble expanding and sales stagnated.
The company’s fortunes improved after Walter Haas, a relative of Strauss, began managing the business in 1919. The company suffered during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the popularity of dude ranches (vacation resorts with Western themes) and Western motion pictures in subsequent years brought Levi’s exposure throughout the United States. The company discontinued the wholesaling of dry goods of other companies in 1948 and began focusing exclusively on manufacturing its own products.
III  EXPANSION
Levi’s became fashionable among young men on college campuses in the 1940s and 1950s, even more so when actors Marlon Brando (The Wild One, 1954) and James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955) wore them on screen. In the late 1950s Levi Strauss & Co. began selling jeans through distributorships in a number of European countries, including Germany, France, and England. By 1965 Levi Strauss International was founded as a subsidiary corporation. Meanwhile, sales boomed in the United States as jeans became identified with youth and rebellion. Televisions across the country showed teenagers and young adults in jeans taking part in civil rights marches and antiwar protests.
In 1971 Levi Strauss & Co. offered stock to the public for the first time in order to raise cash for worldwide expansion. By 1983 Levi Strauss International operated in more than 40 countries and sold products in over 75 countries. In 1985 the chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co., Robert D. Haas, great-great grand nephew of Levi Strauss, led family members in a leveraged buyout and the company once again became privately held.
IV  RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
In 1986 Levi Strauss & Co. launched Levi’s Dockers, only its second brand since the company’s founding. The brand grew in popularity as casual clothing became a trend in the workplace in the early 1990s. In 1996 the company introduced Slates, a line of dress pants for men; Slates is the third brand created by Levi Strauss & Co.
During the 1990s the company’s revenues and market share of sales declined. To reduce costs, in 1997 Levi Strauss & Co. began cutting jobs and closing factories in the United States and Canada. The original cuts of nearly 6,500 employees reduced the company’s work force by one-third and were aimed at eliminating plant over-capacity, which had resulted from reduced demand. Industry analysts attributed slumping sales to increased competition and changes in fashion. In 1998 total sales plummeted 13 percent and in early 1999 the company announced further layoffs and plant closures, reducing its workforce and plant facilities by one-third once again. Company officials indicated that competition from other clothing companies using inexpensive overseas labor had made it impossible to maintain large-scale manufacturing operations in the United States and Canada. The company offered a generous severance program to laid-off workers, as well as funding for job retraining and other costs of transitioning.

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Picture Is Taken From ( NewesMagazine )
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