Why India is a perfect fit for Levies

With the purchasing power to meet such lifestyle ambitions, it is only natural to expect a company looking for feet to turn its attention to places where the number of fashionable looking feet is on the rise. But Levi’s idea sees India not only as a market for its clothing but also as a source of managerial and technical talent.

The company is thus harnessing two innate strengths of India.

Denim and jeans are reminiscent of 19th-century European industrial centers: Nimes in France, where weavers used blue and white threads as the weft and warp threads to create a unique fabric with two different colors on both sides could; and Genoa in Italy, where they wove a tough twill meant to withstand the strain of hard physical labor by its wearers.

The two initially came together in the American West during the California Gold Rush, where Levi Strauss, a general merchant, and a tailor named Jacob W. Davis invented overalls and trousers made of denim with brass rivets to strengthen the stitching at stress points. Marketing started. The workers adopted this new garment and called it jeans.

Denim jeans remained the clothing of men who performed hard physical labor until the American West was settled, and the hard life of frontiersmen became a subject of romantic nostalgia for people on the East Coast. Even in the 1930s, Levi Strauss advertised its jeans as the ideal garment for farmers, miners, cowboys and construction workers. But things changed.

Those who aspired to the toughness of the men and women who conquered the American West embraced the jeans as a convenient way of channeling their inner Buffalo Bill, the menace of men who heeded the advice. And without experiencing a hard life – ‘Go West, young man’. Levi Strauss was the ideal manufacturer and peddler of jeans, but for the first 11 years of the 20th century, Wrangler and Lee also made appearances.

Jeans were considered essential goods and were therefore rationed during World War II, but when war-like shortages became history the demand for such goods exploded. Jeans became associated with the rebellion of the 1960s – rock bands and the sexual revolution. They’ve remained the epitome of youth chic ever since—even if demand ebbs and flows—as plain indigo jeans have made way for a variety of colors, washes, and fits.

Amidst the pandemic-induced work-from-home culture, jeans and a new breed of clothing called athleisure (a combination of athletic and leisure wear) gained popularity. Levi Strauss has bought Beyond Yoga brand and will sell that brand in India sooner or later.

According to Price Research, Indians who can be termed as ‘middle class’ number about 420 million, with incomes in the range of Rs. from 0.5 million 3 million. who have higher income 30 million per year number only 40 million, while nearly two-thirds of the population of 1,400 million earn less than that 40,000 a month.

Now, 40 million is not a large population by Indian standards, but is almost two-thirds the population of Italy, 80% of the population of South Korea, and a few million smaller than Spain. income of 3 million, in purchasing power parity terms, is about $130,000 per year. Someone with that kind of income can afford a few pairs of jeans.

Add to this the ongoing data consumption revolution in India, with a rise in smartphone ownership, especially among the youth, and the demand for jeans can only increase. It doesn’t take a marketing savvy to see India’s potential as a market for Levi Strauss, the originator of jeans.

That a prestigious fashion label sees India as a source of managers and leaders is icing on the cake as it burns the country’s reputation on such things. Move over, big tech-big manufacturing is also mining India for talent.