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Students Present Levi's 501 Remastered Designs to Vintage Denim Guru Eric Schrader

Students in The Business of Denim program presented their final sketches and sampled jeans for the “Levi’s 501: Remastered” project today on the Los Angeles campus to Eric Schrader, a world renowned denim expert and founder of vintage denim retail boutique Junkyard Jeans.

The students were challenged to reinvent the iconic 501 for modern times. Assistant Department Chair of Special Projects Tricia Edwards said, “The 501 is the source of inspiration for nearly all jeans in the marketplace today.”

Schrader has mentored the students throughout the project, traveling between Los Angeles and his home in Boise, Idaho for rounds of edits and feedback.

Each of the six students in the elite denim program—Edith Baeza, Bianca Betdashtoo, Joe Gonzalez, Belle Barreiro Seiden, Hailey Liu, and Shannon Reddy—used premium rigid denim from the Candiani mills in Italy. They answered the challenge with things like knee patches, reinforced details,

The students started meeting with Schrader on the project in summer quarter’s Denim Construction Fit & Cost I class (DENM 3550A). To inspire the students, he provided the students with a pair of men’s and women’s Levi’s 501 vintage jeans.

Known in the industry for identifying rare denim, Schrader travels the world collecting and selling vintage jeans, as documented in the 2014 film, “Blue Gold: American Jeans.”

As a gift to Eric Schrader for his mentorship throughout the project, the students designed a denim tote bag implementing the main elements of their remastered 501 designs. Tricia Edwards, Assistant Department Chair Special Projects at FIDM, constructed the tote by hand using recycled denim.

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