Why do people love, keep and repair clothes?
The question was front and center for Levi Strauss & Co. The blue jean broker held a design panel last week where industry experts explored the reasons behind our attachment to clothing.
The conversation, held at the company’s showroom in Midtown Manhattan, brought together industry hopefuls with leaders on building emotional connection(s) with one’s clothing and how to preserve that value—both physically and psychologically.
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“A lot of times designers put their own narrative into their work or product and, sometimes, we mistake design as an activity of self-expression, or prioritize the idea of the self-expression over the idea of service,” said Paul Dillinger, vice president of global design innovation at Levi Strauss & Co. “At the end of the day, people want something comfortable and probably familiar. And familiarity isn’t always the primary motivator, but value, familiarity and comfort will always trump extreme novelty.”
On that note, the panel, moderated by Fast Company staff writer Elizabeth Segran, examined secondhand’s role in cultivating connection.
“Vintage has a story, right? Who wore it before? I always wonder, like, what’s the story behind each piece,” Emma Rogue said. The New York-based entrepreneur and creative is best known as the founder of Rogue—a media platform and vintage shop popular with Gen Z.
“And it’s good because nobody else has it. That’s what I think really draws a lot of people to vintage,” Rogue continued. “The reason people shop secondhand is because they can form that personal connection to a piece that, like, nobody else has.”
On teaching this idea of love and emotional attachment in the design process, fashion scholar Yvonne Watson said it’s not an actively taught concept; instead, it’s something that “exists in the interchanges happening” as part of the creative process.
“The creative process itself is driven by passion, it’s driven by love—there’s an excitement in that,” said Watson, vice provost for global academic strategy and partnerships for The New School. “And then some of it is driven by the love of craft. I think there’s something very integral in relation to how do we make things; how we move something from being in this two-dimensional, flat piece of fabric to something [for] the body? There’s something about this that embodies a relationship that’s about a kind of love as well.”
The panelists covered trends—and microtrends—as well, exploring how maintaining mindfulness can prevent burnout.
“I think now more than ever the cycle of trends is so fast; I see kids coming in every three months with a whole new aesthetic that wasn’t popular three or six months ago,” Rogue said. “I still stand by thrifting as a great way to participate in trends and not contribute to the fast fashion cycle.”
That’s the premise of Rogue, she continued—the team spends “hours and hours every week sourcing” secondhand, which is a “very labor-intensive process,” she said, “which I feel like some people don’t realize.”
For Levi’s, it “really comes down to the fact that trends are a great way to inform what you’re going to wear if you don’t know what you look good in.”
“We know ourselves and we all have made sense of what looks best on us,” Dillinger said. “Having that confidence to say no thank you to a trend, ‘I’ll stick with the thing that I know and love, it looks great’ because that thing that you know and love that looks great is going to last, all the better—or, if you know where you got it and trust that they’re going to continue to have it, even better yet.”
