About Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO)

Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO) is a privately held clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Bavaria, Germany to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. Although the company began producing denim overalls in the 1870s, modern jeans were not produced until the 1920s. The company briefly experimented (in the 1970s) with employee ownership and a public stock listing, but remains owned and controlled by descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss' four nephews.

Organization

Levi Strauss & Co. is a worldwide corporation organized into three geographic divisions: Levi Strauss Americas (LSA), based in the San Francisco headquarters; Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa (LSEMA), based in Brussels; and Asia Pacific Division (APD), based in Singapore.The company employs a staff of approximately 10,500 people worldwide, and owns and develops a few brands. Levi's®, the main brand, was founded in 1873 in San Francisco, specializing in riveted denim jeans and different lines of casual and street fashion.^[1]

From the early 1960s through the mid 1970s, Levi Strauss experienced explosive growth in its business as the more casual look of the 60s and 70s ushered in the "blue jeans craze" and served as a catalyst for the brand. Levi's®, under the leadership of Jay Walter Haas Sr., Peter Haas Sr., Paul Glasco and George P. Simpkins Sr., expanded the firm's clothing line by adding new fashions and models, including stoned washed jeans through the acquisition of Great Western Garment Co.,(GWG), a Canadian clothing manufacturer, acquired by Levi's®. GWG was responsible for the introduction of the modern "stone washing" technique, still in use by Levi Strauss.

Mr. Simpkins is credited with the company's record paced expansion of its manufacturing capacity from fewer than 16 plants to more than 63 plants nationwide from 1964 through 1974. Perhaps most impressive, however, was that Levi's®' expansion under Simpkins was accomplished without a single unionized employee as a result of Levi's®' and the Hass families' strong stance on human rights and Simpkins' use of "pay for performance" manufacturing at the sewing machine operator level up. As a result, Levi's' plants were perhaps the highest performing, best organized and cleanest textile facilities of their time. Levi's® even piped in massive amounts of air conditioning into its press plants, which were known in the industry to be notoriously hot, for the comfort of Levi's® workers.

2004 saw a sharp decline of GWG in the face of global outsourcing, so the company was closed and the Edmonton manufacturing plant shut down.^[2] Dockers was launched in 1986.^[3] Sold largely through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to fade. Levi Strauss attempted to sell the brand in 2004 to relieve part of the company's $2 billion outstanding debt.^[4]

Launched in 2003, Levi Strauss Signature features jeanswear and casualwear.^[5] In November 2007, Levi's released a mobile phone in co-operation with ModeLabs. Many of the phone's cosmetic attributes are customisable at the point of purchase.