Close your eyes and imagine a pair of jeans. Chances are, you’re picturing the Levi’s 501, a genre-defining silhouette the denim juggernaut introduced 150 years ago. Levi’s is to jeans what Kleenex is to tissues: so dominant they’re practically synonymous. And yet, over the decades Levi's has continued to tweak, refine, and subvert its hero product. So to celebrate the 501’s big anniversary, the first name in denim called up Eli Russell Linnetz, the creative polyglot behind the buzzy menswear label ERL, to inject its catalog with a dose of Venice Beach vibes.
The last time Linnetz was let loose in another brand’s archives, he was in Paris with Kim Jones, the artistic director of Dior Men’s, who tapped the native Angeleno to guest design the maison’s spring ’23 capsule. This time around, the ERL mastermind saved a mint on airfare: Levi’s HQ is in San Francisco, the very same city its founder got his start slinging riveted blue jeans to hard-scrabble gold miners.
Linnetz’s reverence for Levi’s lore, and the vibrant tapestry of American life he encountered in its archives, is very evident—and very contagious. The upcoming collection includes plenty of jeans: there’s a slit-leg riff on the 501, along with a few entirely new silhouettes inspired by the effortless slouch of Venice-area skate rats. But there's also a floor-length sherpa-lined trucker jacket and a boxy overshirt, the latter of which Bad Bunny surprise-debuted on the Coachella stage in April, wearing a matching pair of Levi’s x ERL oversized board shorts.
All of it comes rendered in a washed blue denim inspired by the well-worn Levi’s Linnetz remembers sifting through in flea markets and secondhand stores as a kid; the specific sun-faded hue he landed on took the designer and the Levi’s team close to two years to perfect. And in typical ERL fashion, Linnetz shot and styled the campaign himself, corralling a beatific crew of American archetypes—including a gaggle of frat bros from USC, his alma mater—to bring his gently-bronzed vision of the Levi's universe to life.
Ahead of the collaboration’s debut next week, GQ hopped on a Zoom with Linnetz to discuss the global influence of California style, how skaters look so cool, and why a perfect pair of jeans is the highest form of luxury.
The Levi’s x ERL collection will be available starting on September 6th via the Levi’s website, select Levi’s stores, and at Dover Street market locations around the world.
Eli Russell Linnetz: When I design a collection or I work on a special project, it has nothing to do with what people want. It really has to come from this authentic place—my touchpoint with Levi's, for example, seemed very connected to me and my story of sun-faded California, and very all-American, obviously. Which is why I wanted to work with Levi's: Because of the heritage. ERL is all about authenticity, so it was really important for me to work with them on this.
Yeah, of course.
I was always wearing my mom's 501s.
Wide in the hips. [Laughs.] I was always stealing my parents' clothes. I guess my dad wore Levi's, too. So for me it's really a thing that people were doing before they were aware that it was a fashion statement. [Levi’s] was always a part of my parents' lives, and everyone's lives, really. So that was intriguing to me to kind of be, like, Oh, how do I give people the memory of my feeling going through flea markets and secondhand stores?
That was the exciting part. For me, Levi's is so specific, and then once you really go there, you see that there's all these other things. In my mind, Levi's was always sun-faded—very light washes, distressing—but everyone probably has a different experience of how Levi's exists in their life. Because it was specific, it wasn't really daunting. I only do things that feel super authentic or logical, and besides for Dior, I don’t really do fashion-related things. I liked the authenticity and storytelling of something super American and specifically Californian, too.
That was literally the only thing I was really interested in doing. For me, it was more exciting to get to play with the iconography of Levi's and their heritage.
It wasn't really tweaking anything. I had the exciting pleasure of playing with the 501, but it really was taking their language and the visual history, because there were a lot of shapes that we created, a lot of skate-inspired shapes that just didn't exist. It was really exciting to capture this youthful energy, so I casted a lot of people that I knew from Malibu and Venice. Some of the people [from the campaign] are related, some of them are brothers and sisters. Some of these guys are in a fraternity at USC together.
It almost seems like I wanted to design something that felt common, that is anti-fashion, but that has the details of [designer counterparts]. It’s all about the light-washed denim and it comes super distressed.
The lifestyle, the effortlessness. There's an inherent swag to their personalities, a connection to movement or mobility. There's a functional aspect—even when their jeans are completely ill-fitting, it's just about the vibe.
I always think of things as movies and stories. I don't really care about the real world at all, and I think of things as photos before I even think about the clothes. Then it becomes taking those photos, or realizing something that was already in my brain that I was trying to express, about this youthful American ease that's super relatable for Venice Beach. It's kind of like working backwards as a costume designer, where you know what the end frame is going to look like. How are you using washes and all this stuff to tell those stories?
We went through so many variations to land on this product, and I kept whittling it down and whittling it down until I got back to something that felt authentic.
Originally, it was supposed to feel like a thrift store where each jean had a different wash and all this stuff, but I wanted to do something that was really clearly identifiable. There's a neon ERL logo on all the pants, just one symbol randomly placed on each pair of jeans. So it feels unique. But other than that, there's a satisfying simplicity to it.
The coolest part was going into the Levi's archive and seeing pairs people made at Woodstock, or the pairs people have been mending and making themselves for the past 100 years. We went through thousands of different versions where there were hand doodles on them and all this stuff based on things they found in the archives.
Our skater shorts have this neon branding on them, but to get them there, they kept evolving so much. They started as a long pair of overalls, and then we kept cutting them and reworking them. So you have all these really cool overall details on them, but it looks like someone cut them apart. Everything isn’t necessarily what it seems. There all of these different references shoved into something deceivingly simple.
Yeah, exactly.
I did all his costume design for Coachella. I was wearing them, and he was, like, What are those? I have to wear those. And I was, like, Oh, those haven’t really come out yet. And he was, like, No, I have to wear these.
I was wearing one of the puffers I made while we were meeting, and he was, like, Oh, I want to wear those, too. So he’s just doing the whole thing.
The exciting part is it really is for everyone. I met this hitchhiker in Big Sur a few weeks ago, and I gave him a pair of the jeans. I'm going to photograph him in them, too. All these different people, from Bad Bunny to a hitchhiker—an actual hitchhiker in the year 2023!—were down to wear it. For me, this was about capturing something that feels authentic, and the youthful energy, the vibe of Venice skaters. There were so many different characters. There are some dresses that feel super Amish, kind of middle America. There's a cool school bully, there's an innocent cheerleader.
Endearing Bully, I guess. Skater. All people I grew up with.
I always have a consistent idea, throughout all my work, of my vision of the world. We've never used makeup on shoots. We've never had a hair person on a set. It's always just them coming as they are. And I feel like that's a big part of Levi's appeal, there's not this pretense of fashion or anything. It was exciting. There are a lot of rules around the Levi's 501 because it's such a core piece, but we kind of had a fun way of doing it, where we put a big slit up the side, so it really changes the silhouette on it while still remaining a 501.
I didn't give them a choice. [Laughs.] Kidding. They had to run it by a lot of people, but they were super cool with it.
I don't really do collabs. You can't say no to Dior, and you can't say no to Levi's. Everything I create has such a strong DNA tied to Americana, and that really begins with Levi's in terms of fashion.
Whenever I make something or whenever I'm taking photos, I'm always thinking of what it’s going to look like in 50 years or 100 years when someone sees it. I'm never thinking about how it connects to this moment, or how it’ll sell. I just don't think about that stuff, 'cause I'm, like, Oh, some kid in 100 years is going to see this photo—what will they think?
That's why I wanted to keep it straightforward, but really creative. There are a lot of new silhouettes, which were really cool to develop. That took more than a year, almost two years, for us to nail down. It was really about getting these iconic shapes for the future as opposed to just a traditional collab where we're just, like, Oh, make this. It was us working with their team of experts to make something that felt in-line with everything else they do and the authenticity of Levi's.
I mean, I never think about it until I'm wearing a piece of trash clothing and someone's, like, Oh, where did you get that? I'm, like, I just found it. I don't even know where it's from. I think there's an obsession worldwide with Venice, California, but the core of California style really is Venice Beach and that casualness, which is really tied to everything I do. Even if I'm making a suit or working with Dior, there's always an ease to American, and California style in particular, that I think will always be desirable. It feels fresh and new because it's so far removed from how clothes are made in Europe.
Everything. Even the craftsmanship and what’s considered luxury. For me, finding the perfect washed pair of jeans in the perfect fit is the highest form of luxury—but they might look like you just found them on the street compared to what the European idea of luxury looks like. I think there's a lot to be changed in terms of that. I really believe in craftsmanship, and I feel like there's so much amazing craftsmanship that comes out of California, especially in the movie industry. That's where I learned about craftsmanship. Cost and design and storytelling is something that mainly comes out of California, traditionally.
Cowboys. There's a lot of Western elements even within the pieces I make now; I try to connect elements of Western Americana to every piece. It was interesting going to the archive, and seeing how much you learn about a person based on the old pairs we found. Like, Oh, this person was a cowboy, and this is the part of the country they were in, because of the kind of leaves that would hit the front of their jeans while they were riding. Or the spur hitting the back of their heels. All those little micro details tell so much about the characters we saw in the archive, which I definitely want to explore more.
I don't buy vintage Levi's, that's why I make them. I don't buy new clothes, that's why I wanted to do the project. I was always, like, Oh, I want the perfect pair of Levi's, and I hate shopping and I don't shop, so I made them.
However you want. It's just up to you and your personality. You can wear a completely oversized, ill-fitting pair of jeans [held up] by a shoelace and if they fit perfectly, it's the vibe. It's really open to how people want to express themselves and what makes them feel good.