New Balance Levi's x New Balance Wmns 327 'Light Wash Denim'
Colorway: Blue · Style code: WS327LVA · Release date: November 9, 2020 · Price: $297 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Women's 327 (WS327BL) · Women's 327 (WS327GD) · Women's 327 (WS327PH) · Women's 327 (WS327PJ) · New Balance Wmns 327 'Au Lait' (WS327AAB)
Levi Strauss opened a San Francisco branch of his family's business in 1853. The idea that made the company was not his: Jacob Davis, a tailor working in Reno, worked out that copper rivets set at the corners of pockets would stop work trousers tearing at the points where they always tore. The two men filed together and received the patent in May 1873. When it entered the public domain in 1890, the company assigned lot numbers to its products, and the riveted waist overalls became the 501.
The red tab stitched into the back pocket seam came later and does almost nothing except identify the garment at a distance. It is one of the marks Levi's has registered and defended, and it is the only piece of the brand that transfers cleanly onto a shoe.
This 327 uses it as a punctuation mark. Off-white suede overlays sit against light indigo denim panelling on the lateral side, with a white leather N running the length of it and the red tab set into the logo. The medial side swaps the denim for white textile. A gum outsole finishes it, at $130.