Levi's® hook up with Grateful Dead for new clothing collection

(Image credit: LEVIS)

Clothing manufacturers Levi's® have launched a new collection of Grateful Dead-themed threads. And they're labelling it "two brands, one trip".

"In our new collection, Levi’s® and the Grateful Dead come together, but actually, we were never apart," claim Levi’s®, their statement peppered enthusiastically with registered trademark symbols. "Generations of Dead Heads - the band’s ever-growing community - have used Levi’s® as a canvas for self-expression, customizing their jeans, t-shirts and Trucker Jackets. Wearing them to concerts. Envisioning the future."

"With this collaboration," they continue, "we celebrate our ongoing legacy of music, community and creativity."

The news follows the launch of a range of Grateful Dead tea in March, while high-end London clothing store Selfridges introduced a range of Grateful Dead merchandise last month. And it's only been a year since a range of official Grateful Dead deodorants hit the nation's drugstores.

The Levi's® collection includes various items of clothing including Grateful Dead x 501® jeans, shorts, a range of patches, and a t-shirt celebrating the band's performance at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1977.

"We’re fusing iconic graphics, tie-dye psychedelics - and, yes, a dancing bear or two - in a range of special denim pieces, accessories and customization options," say Levi's®. "The Dead is all about radical self-expression, so we asked some San Francisco musicians and artists (and Dead Heads) to show us how they’d make it their own."

The Grateful Dead x Levi’s® collection has launched 50 years after the band played a historic 1971 show at the Fillmore West in San Francisco’s, a performance released as the live album known as Skull & Roses. A 50th Anniversary Edition of Skull and Roses of the album was released last month.

Shop the Levi's® x Grateful Dead collection.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.