Last Sunday I checked into the Levi’s store with a goal of picking up a couple packs of limited edition “Notes From the Road” notebooks (mission accomplished). I’m a Field Notes fan* going back to their original launch and a Levi’s fan going back even farther. Indeed, rare is the day that I won’t be found rocking a pair of 505s. They’re not perfect but they get the job done nicely and their low cost makes them easy to acquire and replace (as opposed to my other favorite denim option).
Levi’s is one of those classic American heritage brands that has earned a healthy measure of cachet and respect, and it’d be easy for them to embrace that angle as nothing more than a matter of advertising. That’s the cynical approach, yes, but it’s also the approach most companies would take. It’s easier to rest on reputation than it is to actually push it. Levi’s, to their credit, is pushing it.
The aforementioned Field Notes collab is a great example, and the Pioneer Sessions project is another. The ongoing “Go Forth” campaign is yet another. There’s also the Workshops project, which is amazing and will probably get a post of its own sometime soon.
Today, though, it’s about what I found on Sunday as I paid for my notebooks: their involvement with Braddock, Pennsylvania.
I first heard about Braddock maybe a year or so ago via an article in Rolling Stone (sadly not available online). What’s happening there, essentially, is that people are taking the future into their own hands and revitalizing a dying city piece-by-piece, one project and one idea at a time. One person at a time. As Levi’s puts it:
Braddock, PA is a town of pioneers. It’s a place where artists, farmers and activists are building a new America where another once stood. This is their story.
It’s also the story of the people who were originally responsible for Levi’s becoming what they are today, a fact the company seems to get.
Stories like this are the real economic recovery. Messages like these are the ones that need to be heard. Real solutions never come from the top down. That doesn’t mean the other way always works, but I’ll take the odds any day.
*more on them soon
