“We sold a lot of sweaters—more than we have sold in a long time,” said Harmit Singh, Levi Strauss & Co.’s executive vice president and chief financial and growth officer during the brand’s Q4 2025 earnings call last week.
Sweaters may not be the first item anyone thinks of when they hear the brand name Levi’s, but it’s a category that’s accelerating the San Francisco-based brand’s head-to-toe denim strategy.
Levi’s tops category is proving to have broad-based momentum. Michelle Gass, LS&Co. CEO, president and director, reported double-digit growth for the category, accounting for nearly half of Levi’s brand revenue growth and higher AURs versus last year. “The tops reset we initiated a few years ago, bringing in new internal talent, new vendors and enhanced capabilities is paying off today,” she said.
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Overall, Q4 organic sales grew by 7 percent to $6.2 billion for the fiscal year ended Nov. 3.
“Over the past two years, we’ve taken bold steps on our journey to become a DTC-first head-to-toe denim lifestyle retailer. We’ve made deliberate strategic choices to maximize the potential of the Levi’s brand, narrow our focus by exiting noncore businesses and vigorously pursue our highest-return growth opportunities. We are becoming a more consumer-focused DTC-centric lifestyle company, which has led to faster growth and higher profitability. These efforts led to strong full year financial results,” Gass said.
In Q4, global D2C business delivered another quarter of double-digit growth, up 10 percent. It is Levi’s 15th consecutive quarter of positive comps.
Improving the customer experience and store productivity have been key to this growth. In stores, consumers see enhanced lifestyle merchandising that highlights Levi’s assortment of head-to-toe looks. Behind the scenes, Gass said the brand has improved its assortment planning and life cycle management resulting in lower promotions and higher full-price selling.
These steps, plus the deployment of an integrated agentic AI platform to simplify and automate task-driven work throughout the organization, will further drive efficiency and growth.
Gass said Levi’s has already shortened its end-to-end lead time by a few months and is now focused on creating different tracks of products. For example, the brand is looking at vendors for tops who are closer to the point of distribution. The brand is expanding its globally directed line as well to drive global consistency. In 2023, it accounted for 20 percent of Levi’s products. Now its half.
“Over time, you’ll see that show up in inventory turn and sell-through and productivity,” she said. “Also, it allows us to really get behind those big bets from a marketing standpoint and leverage our resources.”
Looking ahead, sales are expected to grow by another 4 to 5 percent this year. The Americas are expected to grow low single digits, Europe mid-single digits and Asia mid- to high single digits. The company anticipates DTC will grow high single digits.
