JKR

Levi’s is adding this label to their jeans stateside, recommending sustainable washing behaviour and encouraging passing the jeans onto others more needy when you are done with them. On one hand it is very scrooge like to be cynical of any CSR initiative. On the other…well, all the communication here puts the responsibility on the consumer, who might feel a bit nagged and wonder if the company itself practises what it preaches. It’s kind of like reading in your hotel room that the management want you to re-use your towel, not to save them a job, heavens no, but to save the planet.

Encouraging good behaviour is fine, but it risks looking like token CSR messaging if the brand isn’t overtly leading the way somehow. Secondly, I thought the whole point of Levi’s was to wear them till they fell apart – that they got better as they got older, and giving them up was only possible when they were truly past physical redemption. But perhaps as a brand introducing new lines regularly, the shelf life on a pair is now only as long as a passing fashion for a particular cut? My point being not that do-gooding is wrong, but that the most powerful and inspirational way to motivate consumers needs to feel like it comes from a brand’s heart, rather than appearing tacked on (even if the basic motivation is pure and well-intentioned). Levi’s are also doing work with “obey” designer Shepard Fairey in the US – perhaps they should get André the giant to lay down the law on how we should behave?