Bandana Fever

Ralph Lauren Cameron Spencer / Getty Images

Ralph Lauren designed the outfits for the U.S. Olympians, shown here at the Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver.

The new collaboration between local behemoth Levi’s and the New York shopkeepers-cum-coolmakers at Opening Ceremony premiered Feb. 19, and the party at the Union Square Levi’s store certainly showed it. The collection, a Pantone-popping palette of corduroy pants, jackets, shirts and shorts, was on dizzying display on the first floor.

The fashion, design and architecture sets were on the scene, each denizen hoping to score a gift bag. I peeked inside that of pal and interior designer Sally Kuchar, who was sporting one of the jackets in a toothsome curry orange, to find a logo T, a set of postcards from trendy photog Ryan McGinley and (this was my favorite) a little black Kevlar-covered button from S.F. design firm CITIZEN:citizen. Head citizen Philip Wood led a guerrilla marketing campaign before the launch. If you spotted bicycles, parking meters and mannequins around town wrapped a la Jeanne-Claude et Christo in corduroy, that work was Wood’s.

I returned to the Levi’s shop a couple days later to further paw the merchandise. At $150, these slim, straight cords don’t come cheap. But they are made in the U.S.A. and the fit is one of the truer sartorial stovepipes since Honest Abe’s headwear.

I’ll warn you that the pants are unisex, and rode a little high on the waist for me. Perhaps they’re more flattering to the female form.

Levi’s® OnesToWatch® settles in at The Hoxton Bar & Kitchen and Cargo in London’s east end with a 5 Night Revue of the highest order. Celebrating the latest and greatest from a plethora of music genres, featuring electronica to folk and everything in between, this week-long shindig (16-20 November) promises to entertain, inspire and surprise.

Each night has been lovingly curated with handpicked artists who represent the best in new and emerging talent from a dynamic musical spectrum. The roll call includes an exclusive first solo show from Andrew Davie of Cherbourg onfolk inspired Monday, Basque-dance prodigies Crystal Fighters, and a much anticipated performance from much hyped Marina & The Diamonds. To close the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen shows, the Thursday evening will celebrate the best new female fronted acts, with sets from indie-darlings Sky Larkin, the genre-defying songwriter and producer MPHO, and young singer-songwriter of the moment, Beth Jeans Houghton.

Levi’s® OnesToWatch® 2009 closing party will conclude the Revue at Cargo, Rivington Street on Friday night with a more electronic focus, featuring Mr Hudson, and live sets from The Whip, Alex Metric, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Berlin/Londoners Ezra Bang & the Hot Machine. Free Tickets for this night will be available from selected Levi’s® Stores from 2nd Nov, see www.levi.co.uk/LOTWfor details.

Full Line-up:

Monday 16th November: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
Cherbourg (Andrew Davie solo) + Goldheart Assembly + Young Rebel Set

Tuesday 17th November: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
Crystal Fighters + Violens + Wild Palms

Wednesday 18th November: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
Marina & The Diamonds + Wolf Gang + Clock Opera

Thursday 19th November: Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
Sky Larkin + MPHO + Beth Jeans Houghton

Friday 20th November: Levi’s®OnesToWatch® 2009 Closing Party @ Cargo83 Rivington Street
Mr Hudson + The Whip + Alex Metric (Live set) + Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs + Ezra Bang & Hot Machine

For ticket details see www.levi.co.uk/LOTW

November’s 5 Night Revue is the finale event of a busy Levi’s® OnesToWatch® 2009 tour which has featured a stellar roll call of entertainers on its stage putting on parties for thousands of grateful fans.

Residencies in March and April kicked off the year (Rogues, The Temper Trap, Heartbreak) as well as a special set from White Lies to celebrate the opening of a new flagship store on Carnaby Street. The tour headed to Brighton in May for The Great Escape Festival, and put on the must-see gig of the festival with a secret set by Babyshambles. Other bands that graced the Levi’s® stage included Black Lips, The Soft Pack and Mika Miko.

The first 5 Night Revue in July featured Hockey, Passion Pit, Dananananaykroyd and many others before September and October residencies involving likes of Kurran & The Wolfnotes, Exlovers, The Antlers, and Example.

To environmentalists out there: Ever thought about how your favorite pair of jeans could possibly be so energy-guzzling?

The Levi Strauss & Co. has given it a lot of thought, and now it’s working toward reducing carbon and energy emission in its production of that staple of everyone’s wardrobe — jeans. The company began with its own life cycle assessment in 2007, a “cradle-to-grave” account of every stage of production of a pair of jeans.

Levi’s assessment found that the CO2-equivalent emissions of an average pair of Levi’s 501 jeans equal about 32 kg — caused by the cotton production, transport exhaust, washer-and-dryer use, and final disposal of a typical pair of Levi’s 501 jean.This is equivalent to the CO2 emitted by an average U.S. automobile driving 78 miles.

The review also showed that the water used for jeans during the life cycle of one pair of 501 jeans is 3,000 liters (equal to 53 7-minute showers). The energy consumption is about 400 MJ (megajoules) of energy — the amount of energy used to power a personal computer for 556 hours.

Currently Levi Strauss is sponsoring a “wear responsibly” campaign in partnership with Goodwill, in which it offers suggestions to customers to wash jeans less and in cold water, line-dry when possible, and donate used jeans. Levi Strauss is also following a new cotton strategy in which eco-jeans use organic cloth, recycled denim and are distributed with recycled packaging.

Water shortage as a global problem is affecting Levi Strauss. According to a company spokesperson, Levi Strauss manufactures products in 45 countries. “Many … are in the developing world and are already expected to feel the effects of climate change in checking water shortage (India, China, Nicaragua), disease (Cambodia) and flooding (Bangladesh). This creates risk and uncertainty around our long-term sourcing plans.”

For Levi Strauss, this essentially creates risk in business — in quality, production and ultimately, revenue.

So it may be in global companies’ best interests to embrace sustainability.But due to the depth and complexity of a manufacturing company’s relationship with its local environment — its dependence on cotton, transportation and even trends in customer use — this will be easier said than done.

Junkscience.com owner Steve Milloy wrote in his blog that if Levi Strauss “were really concerned about CO2 levels, it would also go out of business.” Milloy is also the author of “Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop them.”

By 2011, Levi Strauss & Co. said they hope to reduce energy use and green house gas emissions by 11 percent worldwide compared to 2007 levels.

Pop-punk-turned-political rockers Green Day have parlayed their mega-selling, award-winning album American Idiot into a Broadway musical, which now includes Levi’s as its lead sponsor.

Seems Levi’s has found a suitable tie-in to its “Go Forth” campaign, which is centered on the theme of “America’s youth forging its own path.”

“Green Day’s American Idiot album has had a profound impact on music and culture, and this show has the potential to revolutionize modern theatre. We are thrilled to be a part of such a ground-breaking artistic concept,” says Doug Sweeny, Vice President of Levi’s Brand Marketing. “Levi’s jeans have been favored by musicians and cultural pioneers who march to the beat of their own drum for decades, so our participation in this show truly is a purposeful and authentic fit.”

Spring Awakening director Michael Mayer helms the production, which will be performed by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and feature every song from the album. Costume designer Andrea Lauer handles the Levi’s threads that are slashed and bleached but hopefully don’t look like the dude from Def Leppard’s stonewashed duds. Dystopia never sounded so hip. You can buy tix here.

Last night, Complex trekked over to Bloomingdale’s to get a sneak peak of the Robert Geller for Levi’s collection. If you’re wondering who Robert Geller is and why he deserves to design a line for Levi’s, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to this site. Catch up!

The German-born, American educated designer got his start working at Marc Jacobs before going on to launch a number of brands, including the award-winning Cloak and the eponymous Robert Geller Menswear, which launched in 2007. Although he’s been toiling away in the industry for the better part of the last decade, gaining accolades left and right, it wasn’t until this year that the Council of Fashion Designers of America gave him the award for Best New Menswear Designer. The award came with a $50,000 prize that would be used to help established his label as well as the Levi’s mini-collection that puts a unique twist on American workwear classics. Familiar yet? If not, read on to see (and buy!) some key pieces of the from the collection we saw last night…

RECONSTRUCTED CHAMBRAY SHIRT
Click here to Buy It Now at Bloomingdale’s, $265

TYPE III VEST WITH SHERPA LINING
Click here to Buy It Now at Bloomingdale’s, $335

MODIFIED PARKA
Click here to Buy It Now at Bloomingdale’s, $575

THE GRADIENT SHIRT
Click here to Buy It Now at Bloomingdale’s, $195

A new fit, the Skinny 511™ jean is one of our slimmest fits. Sits below the waist with a skinny leg. Styled with wider belt loops, new pounded hardware and single-needle stitching. Country Of Origin: Imported.

The Levis Strauss has initiated an offer allowing the customers to buy its line of products and pay through monthly installments (EMI). To avail this offer a customer will have to buy Levis items costing above 1,500 rupees that can be paid later through credit cards in three EMIs with zero percent interest rate. Although Levis denies this to be a strategy to fight the recession, it believes that it’s just a step towards making its products available to most customers.

The consumers love Levi Strauss and want to buy more of it. But it’s not possible for them to buy every month. The offer allows consumers to walk in and use their credit cards. They can just swipe the card and pay in three equal installments.

	The customers feel that it’s a golden opportunity for them as Levis products are very costly.

The offer helps the consumers and the companies too. The customers feel that it’s a golden opportunity for them as Levis products are very costly. It’s good for working people and students because Levis jeans are very expensive to buy and with this offer on you can buy two or three jeans at a time.

In this period of recession, where the consumers and companies are trying to cope up with the hard times, this offer comes as a breather to the shoppers. The main motive behind this strategy is making the most loved brand available to the consumers, which will further enhance their sales in many folds. At the outset, the offer is only available in Bangalore, but it will be introduced in the stores of other parts of the country by the end of this month.

Following the success of the last two 50 Jeans Live Unbuttoned art installations, Levi’s and VICE have come together to find the UK’s most talented painters, illustrators, designers, sculptors, artists, whatever to have their work displayed on HUGE sites throughout London.

There are absolutely no guidelines for this project, other than that your work should try and capture the essence of what it means to “Live Unbuttoned” – living un-restrained and celebrating self-expression and creative freedom. This may involve freedom, creative expression, full-frontal nudity or however else you interpret the project. Basically, this is an offer to have your work displayed in the capital on a huge scale, no strings attached.

If you are selected from the teeming hordes of hopefuls to have your work featured as part of the Live Unbutton campaign, your work will be blown up to HUGE proportions, and displayed in Camden (The Lock Tavern), Shoreditch (Village Underground) and Soho (The Breakfast Club).

The winner will work with the project mentor, Ben Freeman, a regular Vice contributor and general expert on design, graphics, photography and the publisher of all round amazing magazine FUN, to translate their work from small scale, to ‘size of a large building scale’. Once up, your work will remain on show for one month (21st September – 21st October).

Your work need not be in any fixed medium or format, be it oil painting, papier-mâché, carved granite – whatever, we want to see it. All entries simply need to reflect the essence of the 501 jeans Live Unbuttoned campaign.

The competition opens on the 3rd of August and closes on the 1st of September.

For further information on the competition or to submit your entry please visit viceland.com/liveunbuttoned

This is the New X120 Mini from LG. It’s a pretty average Netbook powered by your run of the mill Atom CPU, with 1GB of RAM, 160GB of HDD and a 10.1” WSVGA LED Backlight LCD. Nothing unusual there.

Oh…It’s all in the jeans. The new X120 is a Levi’s Jeans branded Notebook with a Jeans design and even a dedicated Levi’s pouch. They sure took the Jeans theme and ran with it. But the question is, how will they market this? Throwing in some free Levi’s would be sweet.

Save $10 off any order over $100!

Use promotion code 10off2009 at checkout.

A group of approx 80 Vietnam Veterans and their spouses attended this special reunion. They came from all over the country. As we are all aware the Vietnam Vet never received a proper welcome home. They attended a reunion they’ll never forget. Bandana Fever was proud to have sponsored this event. Save on such items as: Nike Air Force 1s Nike Cortez Converse All-Stars Hoodies Dickies Pants Dickies Shirts Baby T-Shirts Baby Bibs Levi’s NBA Jerseys Vans Home Decor Bandana Scarves Learn More

Offer valid from June 11, 2009 through Labor Day only. Unlimited coupons per customer. Not valid with any other offer.