As part of their special Spring/Summer 2010 collection, Dr. Romanelli has worked with Levi’s on a bunch of cool special edition jeans, and tees and one pair of kicks named the “California Beach” Pack. Unfortunately, the jeans and tees are just for the Taiwan market.
The jeans are Levi's 503 and incorporate reversed denim into them.
The shoes:
For the shoes, Dr. Romanelli (aka Dr.X) chose the Chukka model in homage to the Californian surfers and the skaters of the 80s. The kicks sport two-colored laces, vintage jeans, rivets and all.
The shoes are already sold out at Colette, but you can still find them here. There are also several pairs of the denim kicks on ebay - but they are asking upwards of $400 a pair.
Levi's is betting on the fact that you care what other people think. More specifically, what they 'like'. One of the first brands to utilize the social networking concept of the thumbs up "like" button found on Facebook, they've integrated Facebook's new social plug-ins into their online shopping site.
the press release: The Levi’s® brand today announced at Facebook’s f8 conference the introduction of an innovative new way to shop for jeans online. With the launch, the Levi’s® brand is among the first companies to integrate with Facebook’s new Social Plugins. The Levi’s® brand will provide shoppers with an interactive, customized shopping experience on levi.com (based on consumers’ “Likes”), information about “Top-Liked” products across consumers’ networks, and an easy way to find and share relevant Levi’s® products.
“We’re creating a new social shopping experience that will change the way people shop online and, frankly, make buying jeans more fun. We’re excited to pioneer this new technology and help our loyal fans connect with our brand and share their favorite Levi’s® products with friends.”
Jodi Bricker, Vice President of Digital for Levi’s® Americas said, “We’re creating a new social shopping experience that will change the way people shop online and, frankly, make buying jeans more fun. We’re excited to pioneer this new technology and help our loyal fans connect with our brand and share their favorite Levi’s® products with friends.”
As part of today’s announcement, Facebook introduced a new set of Social Plugins that can be easily integrated into a website to make the user experience more personalized and social. Powered by the Open Graph, these new plugins include a “Like” functionality, Activity Feed, and Recommendation widget that bring friends, social activity and relevant interactions to any site off of Facebook.com.
The Levi’s® brand is integrating the “Like” functionality on its e-commerce site – levi.com. In addition, the Levi’s® brand is building a Friend Store in which consumers who are logged into Facebook can see a list of their friends’ favorite Levi’s® products and seamlessly shop with their friends.
The Levi’s® brand is innovating with social and digital media on its Facebook page, in advertising and on its e-commerce website. Last month the brand leveraged its Levi’s® Facebook Page to amplify their ninth annual Levi’s®/FADER Fort event – a music festival in Austin, Texas. This initiative grew the fan base by 60 percent and garnered more than 780,000 live streams of the event.
Fans of Project Runway will recognize this design challenge set forth by Levis as the one that took place on this season's Episode 9 titled "Even Designers Get the Blues".
Above: Levi's SVP of Design Caroline Calvin explained the challenge to the designers as Tim Gunn looked on.
The challenge? To create an iconic denim look that captures the spirit of the Levi's 501 legacy. In addition to the Project Runway episode, the challenge was opened up to the public via the web.
Although the deadline for submissions has passed, you can still vote on the entrants which also automatically enters you into the sweepstakes to win a Levi's 501 gift certificate. The top 20 submissions will be announced on February 21st. Then they go into another final selection before choosing the winning entry. The winner actually gets his or her design produced and sold on levis.com
The final pieces designed by the then remaining 7 challengers on Project Runway:
..and the winning design shown above right.
So, how's the public doing?
Below are just a tiny sampling of the many entries. It's clear that there's no lack of talent out there. There are literally hundreds of these beautifully rendered, wonderfully- if not interestingly- designed entries. I'm showing a mere fraction of them here.
Sure, there are some crude drawings with brilliant ideas and some sophisticated drawings of horrendous designs. But I just wanted to give you a small example of the many talented people that are participating. Forgive me for not crediting the following drawing/renderings. Please go to the website to see who is behind these and the hundreds more.
