Levi’s has been a staple of Bob Dylan’s signature rock star look since the ‘60s.
Now, with the release of the new biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, the brand is saluting the enigmatic singer-songwriter’s style with a capsule collection with Levi’s Vintage Clothing line.
The Levi’s team worked with Arianne Phillips, the Academy Award-nominated costume designer of the biopic on creating a pair of 1955 501 jeans with boot-cut insert, a D belt and a suede jacket.
Dylan’s former girlfriend Suze Rotolo helped inform Dylan’s style. “She helped him figure out his style because his jeans were not fitting nicely over his boots,” said Phillips, who recreated the nuance of the jeans in the film. “She literally cut the inside seam of his jeans and put an insert of another piece of denim so they’d fit nicely around the boot — and this was way before the denim flare.”
Another significant item in Dylan’s wardrobe is his suede jackets which nod to his love for motorcycles and the open American road. Case in point, he wears a tan jacket on the cover of his second studio album “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.” Levi’s salutes that in the collection, which Chalamet wears in the film along with the D belt and boot-cut jeans.
For the film, Phillips made it her mission to track down the exact style of Levi’s that Dylan wore as none of her vintage collectors, or dealers, could identify them.
Paul O’Neill, Levi’s Vintage Clothing’s head designer, found them in the brand’s expansive archive. They were lot 501 XX and the rare Lot 606 Super Slims, which were bought up by Japanese denim collectors in the 1980s.
O’Neill and Phillips’ exchanges of information on Dylan’s wardrobe led to them collaborating on the small collection.
“It was exciting to reproduce Dylan’s original jeans with the inserted panel and include unique ephemera in the presentation, ensuring our new collection captures the film’s romantic themes while faithfully recreating the iconic Levi’s look of an unparalleled genius,” he said.
In 2019, right before it was announced that James Mangold was writing and directing the Dylan biopic, Levi’s produced a vintage capsule collection for the Asian market that came with its own coffee-table book showcasing the looks. The collection was based on the Greenwich Village folk movement of the early 1960s that Dylan was a huge part of.
“When I saw the book and collection, I was freaking out because it looked like our movie,” Phillips remembers.
