Levi’s Skateboarding: Enduring Rivets

The big idea with Levi's® Skateboarding products is that they're meant to endure. Stitched and engineered to be reinforced more than usual, they are intended to withstand all of the knocking around that skateboarding gives you. Here we take the theme of endurance and give a look around some areas related to the Skateboarding program: reflections from some of the dudes involved, historical and technical understanding of the gear, and thoughts on the brand's DIY build projects.

When Jonathan Mehring looks at endurance in his experience as a photographer, he says keeping a steady pace and doing what he loves has kept him going and kept him alive. The guy has done a ton of photo jobs—including covering Levi's Skateboarding's Pura Pura build and trying out different types of freelance work after Skateboarder closed its doors—and been a ton of places. In all of the jobs and trips, he says "staying interested in what I'm doing by managing to find a personal interest in the projects I do keeps me enthusiastic for the long run." Describing how much of the world he covered doing tours with Skateboarder, Mehring recalls "it was a lot of adventure tourism meets skateboarding much of the time including Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and the Amazon region of Brazil where we took river boats between cities. The Trans-Siberian Railway was a major one, as well as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; India with a stop at the Kumbh Mela festival; we bought motor bikes in Vietnam and drove about 1500 miles from Hanoi to Saigon. I guess those have been the biggest trips but I've also traveled through most of Southeast Asia, Africa, most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the list goes on"—and will continue to. True to form, Mehring wrote his comments for this article from a HUF and Thrasher Asia tour that includes a stop in Guam.

Asked what advice he has for being able to hang in there on the road, Mehring says "I think it just takes a certain type of person. You have to be willing to not always get what you want, to deal with unexpected situations, to eat what's offered even if it's unfamiliar or seems unappetizing. You have to want to get out of your comfort zone. If you don't want to and you end up outside of it then you probably won't be very happy."

"The Photographer Series: Jonathan Mehring" by Andrew Norton​

With those points on endurance from a guy who has managed to go all around the world making beautiful pictures of what he's into, we move on to look at jeans: all around the world too, and in essence sprung from the need for something built to last. Before they became a staple the world over, jeans were a workwear innovation from way out west combining an older textile technique with origins in Genoa and Nimes with a fastening method that sealed garments together for longer. Stitching pants together could only go so far, which is where the rivet came in. In the words of Levi's Skateboarding Lead Designer Nic Rendic, "That one innovation improved the performance and became the spark that started the whole thing." The story of its application comes from the mining days of California and Nevada. Tailor Jacob Davis supplied miners, laborers, and cowboys with clothing, and got his materials from the merchant Levi Strauss in San Francisco. Stephanie Hegarty related in her 2012 article for the BBC, " How Jeans Conquered the World," that as Davis fulfilled a request for sturdy trousers from a local woodcutter, he came up with the idea of fastening the clothes he tailored with a copper rivet. Here he could apply a construction concept to crafting garments—kind of making an attempt to permanently staple the key parts of the clothes together—with the result that they wouldn't blow out. But as PBS' Who Made America? page on Strauss explains, Davis didn't have the money to apply to patent this method. So he propositioned Strauss to partner in patenting and rolling out the product that was already in early demand. Hegarty points to a quote from Davis' letter to Strauss explaining "The secratt of them Pents is the Rivits that I put in those Pockots," he said. "I cannot make them up fast enough…My nabors are getting yealouse of these success…" Strauss took him up on it, and they landed U.S. Patent No. 139,121 for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings" in 1873.

Noted in Hegarty's article, the wear was available in two types of heavy cotton: cotton duck and denim. Duck is harder, more like canvas, but denim "was more comfortable, softening with age, and its indigo dye gave it a unique character." Hegarty pulled from Paul Trynka, author of Denim: From Cowboys to Catwalks to explain that it was found very early on that denim was the big seller. Poetically, Trynka says it sold "Because the denim changed as it aged and the way it wore reflected people's lives." As the indigo dye used on denim's exterior chips away over time, the garments would tell the story of the worker and his work. The PBS page on Strauss states that by the end of 1873, "thousands of San Franciscans were wearing Strauss and Davis's pants." After that first year, jeans went on to become favored by workers farther and farther afield, with durability as their sought after value. Technical innovation resulting in this quality then was their initial push.

The garment remained a go-to component of workwear for some subsequent decades and was associated with the romance of the American West and cowboys. But getting them to where we are today, where the well-paid, well-heeled ad exec wears jeans inside a polished office building just as the guy informally selling food on the side of the road does took more historical and cultural turns. These include movements like the huge aggregations of American soldiers in the Second World War—in which American GIs wore them as dependable casualwear that was reminiscent of back home—or counterculture statements by 50's teenagers who were told not to wear them by school authorities (so, duh, got to), or populations wanting to express their solidarity with the protest movements of the 60's. Because of these movements, shared between cultures and spread by mass media like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause, jeans eventually became an item identified with relaxation and casualness that could express individuality, worn worldwide by all classes and peoples.

That brings us to the present day, where jeans are everywhere everywhere, including jeans made for skateboarders. Taking a look at how pervasive the garments are at large and what that can mean highlights the long term influence of endurance in a way that is educational for a culture that holds this substance as such a key part of its chemistry. To start, we can look to the work of social anthropologists Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward for a sense of scale. Before creating the full-length book Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary, they published " A Manifesto for the Study of Denim," that articulated the reach of jeans this way:

"Denim is clearly a global presence, it not only exists in every country in the world, but in many of these it has become the single most common form of everyday attire. In preparing this paper we counted the proportion of persons wearing denim blue jeans out of the first hundred to pass by, on random streets in sites ranging from Istanbul, London, Rio, Manila, Seoul and San Francisco. This ranged from 34% to 68%. This suggests that soon, at any given moment, more than half the world will be wearing this single textile. Although there are many other global forms ranging from foods such as Coca-Cola, through to car brands, we will argue that denim is special, being as much a refusal, as an acceptance, of capitalist pressures such as fashion. Also, a major part of the explanation of its growth is that it connects intimacy and personalization to ubiquity in a manner that is perhaps unique, even within the genre of clothing."

We then fit that with points from Hegarty's article touching on the social impacts of jeans and what she sees as their sustaining element. She says jeans "put different classes on a level playing field. They were affordable and hard-wearing, looked good worn as well as new, and didn't have to be washed often or ironed at all. They conformed to the body in a way that matched even the most finely tailored clothes. This became especially important for women because then, as now, they paid more attention to fit." In her view, these components of flexibility beyond that original, simple endurance are jeans' mainstay: "This versatility, the ability to become all things to all people, is the secret to jeans' survival as a clothing staple."

Scale and impact tie back to taking a hit and getting back up because for any of these phenomena to take place, jeans had to first have that central quality supported by the rivet. Durability was the catalyst for what was to come. The expressed intent of the Levi's® Skateboarding line is to take that essential quality further, bringing the clothes to an even more beatupable place for skateboarders in the present day. Lead Merchant Adam Binette commented on the materials and construction of the pieces to give a clearer understanding of this process. To start, Binette stated that the feedback from skaters is why the collection exists. "The overarching feedback we received was that skateboarders want their garments to stretch and they want them to last longer. For these two reasons we created two new fabrics that combine Cordura fibers for added strength and abrasion resistance and T400 Lycra for superior stretch."

The next big area the Skateboarding line addresses is blowout. Binette says the most common kind was blowout in the crotch. This problem has an ergonomic logic because so much of what skaters do is a very active coordination between legs and hips combined with compression and impact, resulting in a lot of both power and tension at their intersection. So, Binette explains "After looking at a bunch of different jeans that this had happened to we added the bar tacks to the points of the highest stress. These extra stitches in combination with stronger fabric add strength to a part of the garment that usually goes overlooked." Lastly, the Skateboarding program heard a lot of complaints that the back pockets of skaters' jeans were getting blown out from falling while carrying a wallet. In response, Binette says Levi's added a second layer of fabric to the pockets of their pants so they won't rip as fast.

The way Binette came to Levi's to work on this kind of progression as Lead Merchant touches on hanging in there just like the gear. He says he grew up working retail in Boston and New York and always had a passion for clothing, specifically finding a pair of pants that fit exactly how he wanted them to. Hitting a plateau, Binette tried to take things further with apparel. "It had become stagnant for me, so I reached out to a friend of mine at Levi's and the next week I was on a plane to SF to interview for a job" he remembers. Unfortunately, "at the time the company was making some changes and the job I interviewed for went away." The turn of events could have been the end, but Binette maintained the relationship: "I kept in touch with the people I had met in SF and a year later I landed a job in Merchandising and that's where I am at today."

Reflecting on endurance in the design process of crafting the line, Binette's colleague, collection designer Nic Rendic comments, "Endurance has played a big role in how I think about product. We believe that its better to spend a little extra for a product that endures and will last than a disposable one that you get rid of more readily. Quality and durability are everything. I want to hang my hat on things that last." That kind of thinking touches on a certain hardiness Rendic expresses, one that seems to draw from his family's background working in partnership with nature. They immigrated to the U.S. during the early 70's, but back home his dad grew up on a farm just outside Concepción in central Chile. Rendic says "My grandfather had land and taught my dad an appreciation for the outdoors and a simpler life. He was also a commercial fisherman and my old man grew up working on the boats and learning about taking care of the land and the sea." Away from cattle or boats, Rendic carries on family tradition by wearing a knife and a handkerchief as he goes about his daily business, and talks about contributing to the Skateboarding program with a sense of stewardship. In his words, "There is a lot of subjectivity when product is involved, but when you know something is quality and you did your homework on building it, the subjectivity falls away. I don't pretend to be able to make an impact on skateboarding. I just want to build good product for people that will."

But talking to one of the skaters who has been a part of the Levi's® Skateboarding program and put these reinforced products to use, we see that working to create more favorable conditions isn't the only way to produce resilience. Adversity can fuel endurance too. Looking back on getting to where he is today, Joey Pepper sees that "One of the biggest motivations was negativity. I grew up in a beautiful place that I love now but back then, as a young skater I was surrounded by a lot of older kids who hated skaters and a lot of adults who liked to tell me I would never amount to anything if I kept skating." Challenging what was thrown at him, Pepper says, "The only way I could keep the dream alive was to go and explore on my own. One thing led to another and here I am 20 something years later with a few passports full of stamps."

Beyond Pepper's experience, figuring out a way up and over obstacles is an integral part of the builds the Skateboarding program partners on. The builds are in developing countries where conditions are more difficult, and not many people skateboard or understand it. Moreover, the catharsis of skateboarding for the people who take it up or observe it isn't as present because it's not widely available. Both Mehring and Pepper remember how haggard it was to help with construction of Pura Pura, taking it from an idea voiced by people like Milton Arellano to a standing environment that will grow skateboarding in Bolivia. Mehring gave the run-down like this:

"We slept in thatched roof huts with up to 10 people all sharing floor space on wooden pallets with gov't issue mattresses of varying degrees of quality. Walls made from building plastic were little defense against mid 30s temps at night. The showers were cold and at best you could have some direct sunlight on you if you waited until 12 or 1pm to do it. They were made of makeshift plastic stalls behind the bathroom building. The bathrooms were definitely the roughest part. 100 guys sharing 4 toilets with no seats. Toilet paper was in short supply as was soap. Some people made their own toilet seats out of wood but as you can imagine wood absorbs moisture and after a few uses the wooden seats were worse off than the open porcelain bowl. And to add to all this we were all covered in concrete dust and exhausted after each day of working from sun up to sunset. But I must say that all said and done all these rough aspects of the build made it more rewarding. Gritting your teeth multiple times a day against cold, exhaustion, altitude sickness, latrine stench, the beating sun, all made us feel tougher and better at handling whatever hardships were thrown at us in general."

Likewise, Pepper remembers the challenges of extremes in the heights of the Bolivian city. "The site was on a steep hillside so doing something as simple as going to the bathroom or getting breakfast required hiking up or downhill which would leave you completely out of breath due to the high altitude" he says. Meanwhile, "The temperature was something a lot of people weren't prepared for either. When the sun was out, it would be near 80 degrees during the day, and at night drop close to freezing." But making a sick park in a place that didn't have one before, and completing it in spite of conditions of adversity is what gives an endeavor like the builds their feeling of value and accomplishment. It's like the most skateboarding part of this activity related to skateboarding. That unlocking, flying feeling of fun.

This survey of endurance among the guys from the program, jeans knowledge, and the builds winds down with a distilling comment from Pepper. Asked about what someone does when they discover skateboarding for the first time, he says "I think it really takes a certain type of person to gravitate toward something that can be so frustrating and difficult to pick up. No matter how much of a natural athlete someone is, it's really hard to get a grasp on the fundamentals of skateboarding. For that reason, I think those who stick with it long enough to get good, usually never quit." There is friction from the get, because by its nature a skateboard is going to require that you hang in there and try a million times and get beat up for you to roll with it and chase after the ride you enjoy on it. It's going to push you to be a rivet, take it or leave it.

A step further that skaters could take from this look at endurance is to broaden the opportunities presented by projects within the community so that they enrich the culture, giving it different types of strength and resilience. More commonly known activities in skateboarding take the action and the physical space of a local scene to create an event space or to support the people skating in that area. These can be as simple as organizing a session with a barbecue going on alongside, or more complex and planned with crews taking on a city for eight hours like the All City Showdown series started by 35th North Skateshop in Seattle. But there are off-the-board activities that have more uncharted potential to explore, activities that nurture skating and benefit the people who dig it and make it a part of their lives. As one example, Johnny Wilson, who made Beef Patty, traded for his first VX through the network provided by Skate Perception. As another, the Harold Hunter Foundation makes skate experiences for kids from the inner city that influence their lives outside of skateboarding. Likewise Make Life Skate Life is working to supply Pura Pura with boards, gear, and volunteer skate instructors to foster community and education around the build site now that it's done. So for every crew, scene, shop, is there anything like this or anything more that we want to do for ourselves and each other?

One idea is to think towards institutions we could make of our own design. Given his positive experience learning woodworking through classes at the late 3rd Ward, DIY, and apprenticing, Pepper was asked if there could be a place in skateboarding where people could push themselves to learn complex maker's skills and build things. He was optimistic, mentioning the presence of Woodward. "But there could be a place for a broader age group too," he said, "A place for the skate community to learn all sides of the skate world from building wood ramps, to concrete, metal work, video, photo, all the way to the business end of it." He went on to add, "A good friend of mine Sam Chami has a site dedicated to this called workinskateboarding.com. She has been working to promote skateboarding as a career beyond just riding one." The points above and Pepper's thoughts show we're in motion, but there's still got a lot of room for skaters to grow what they choose to cultivate. If Pepper's pursuits as a woodworker are any example, we could go from building flatbars to drop at McCarren to more intricate pieces like rocking chairs, to lamps, to dude building a canoe.

"Huck Presents … Joey Pepper: Wake and Make" by Huck Magazine, directed by Richard Quintero​

Check out ​levi.com/skateboarding to learn more about the Levi's Skateboarding collection and their build projects like Pura Pura.