The Levi’s archive in San Francisco has played host to many designers over the decades. The brand’s newest collaborators, Laura and Deanna Fanning, co-creative directors of Kiko Kostadinov’s womenswear offering, delved deep into the collection to find inspiration for their collaboration with the denim behemoth, which launches today, 22 August. “The way the Levi’s archivists presented the pieces to us had a real alchemy,” the sisters tell Vogue of their visit.
Having been in conversations with the Levi’s team for several seasons, the designers say that now felt like the right time to explore a partnership, and they presented their own takes on Levi’s signatures – think jeans, sherpa-lined trucker jackets, denim vests and Henleys – at their autumn/winter 2024 runway show back in March. “We have always been interested in the expertise of Levi’s and how its collaborations push what denim can be,” they explain. “We were interested in looking at three-piece denim suits and collated files of these looks as a starting point.
” Alongside the umber-tone washed denim, inspired by vintage pieces from the archive, there are styles printed with the brand’s trademark stripes (“our fondness for fuzzy textures and stripes present themselves in small panelled details and washed irregular prints”) and a “dual mode” denim jacket. But the hero pieces are, of course, the jeans. “That’s where it started for Levi’s originally and we feel all of the elemen.