Distressed Denim: Levi’s Tries to Adapt to the Yoga Pants Era

Levi’s is overhauling its namesake brand’s entire women’s line. The company, founded in 1853, has survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, and other epochal threats, but in the last two years it’s been tormented by an enemy none of its executives saw coming: yoga pants. Comfortable and flattering at the same time, athletic pants last year sold in about equal numbers to jeans for the first time in the U.S., according to market researcher NPD Group, as revenue from women’s jeans fell 8 percent. At Levi’s, the yoga pants scourge is especially vexing, disrupting a turnaround plan by a new chief executive officer that had been showing signs of success.