Levi's unveils new curriculum made to teach high schoolers crucial life skill: 'We're seeing a resurgence'

In an era of fast fashion, classic American denim purveyor Levi's has taken a decidedly different approach, training high schoolers in a key "lost skill."

According to Fast Company, Levi's conducted in-house research and made a dismaying discovery: 41% of those polled from Generation Z had no sewing or mending skills whatsoever, a rate double that of previous generations.

Paul Dillinger, Levi's global head of design innovation, told Fast Company of his reaction when he noticed a friend's shirt was missing a button. 

"Oliver said he didn't have time to throw it away and put on a new shirt. It was an illustration of everything that's wrong with the current paradigm. And it could be fixed with a little needle-and-thread evangelism," Dillinger recalled.

After an on-the-spot crash course in basic mending, he began "preaching the gospel of mending" often, including at the office. His evangelism reached Alexis Bechtol, who handles community affairs at Levi's.

She "saw an opportunity" to convert Dillinger's informal lessons to something more organized, and Levi's Wear Longer project was conceived. Instead of aiming to sell more jeans, it teaches young people to "repair, refresh and reimagine their clothes so they look better and last longer."

Levi's partnered with Discovery Education to develop the Wear Longer project, and the latter's instructional design manager, Kimberly Wright, said the program was part of a broader trend. 

"We're seeing a resurgence in skills-based learning. Across the country, there's a shift toward not just making students college-ready, but career-ready," Wright commented.

Around the turn of the century, early fast-fashion brands like H&M and Forever 21 introduced shockingly affordable — and functionally disposable — clothing to malls across America. Amazon Prime was launched in 2005, with "fast shipping" a key draw. 

Eventually, online retailers like Shein and Temu drove prices even lower, cementing the ease with which clothing could be obtained cheaply. But with lower prices often comes lower quality, meaning these garments are quickly discarded and replaced.

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Fast Company noted that the average American today discards 81.5 pounds of clothing each year, but estimates that include other textiles range as high as 103 pounds annually. Globally, that contributes to around 101 million tons of yearly textile waste.

In 2024, the Government Accountability Office published a brief warning that the problem of landfilled textile waste was escalating quickly, with fast fashion cited as a primary factor. 

It accounts for nearly 8% of landfilled waste, and in addition to generating troublesome air pollution, contaminants enter "soil and water as textile waste decomposes in landfills," per the brief.

While many Gen Z consumers may lack sewing skills, Fast Company noted that younger people have embraced shopping at thrift stores, with the higher quality of vintage clothes one of the primary driving factors.

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