Levi’s by Eddie Cochrane 1987

Another significant campaign launched by Levi’s in 1987, is Guitar by Eddie Cochrane. Cochran was famous for performing rock and roll in head to toe denim.

The concept for the 1987 Levi campaign was based on a New Year’s Eve party given by the long-dead 1950s American singer Eddie Cochrane. The main female character struggles to decide what to wear. Eventually she chooses her Levi’s 501s. On arriving at the party she is under dressed compared to the other women who look glamorous and elegant. Her decision to wear her jeans becomes a wise one when Eddie Cochrane invites her to stay.

The campaign describes the social acceptability of casual dressing in the late 1980s. Dress etiquettes had been strict up until this period and those wearing jeans, trainers and casual wear were often refused entry to bars, clubs and restaurants. This campaign encouraged a change in the rules, which evidently took place. Advertising agencies granted permission to dress casually and also promised that this would attract the right kind of mate. The agencies broadcast, to a national market, a new way of dressing which otherwise would have been kept to the London hub. The advertisement cleverly marketed itself not just at 1980s young people, who went out and bought the original Eddie Cochrane record and were introduced to him perhaps for the first time, but also at the original 1950s teenagers for whom Cochrane had provided the soundtrack to their youth.