In the 2023 movie about ‘Tetris’, the Russian inventor of the world’s first truly universally loved video game explains to Taron Edgerton’s naive American protagonist that what young Soviets really wanted in 1988 is freedom. Specifically, “freedom of speech, freedom of art and of freedom of expression… And freedom to wear Levi’s® jeans.”
While Moscow in the late eighties may seem a strange place to start a story about Levi’s® new Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Mitchell, it does tell us something crucial about the global climate of his formative years. While he and his older brother were taping tracks from rap radio and practicing their head spins, their contemporaries in the East were longing for the sound of 808s and the dreaming of feeling American denim against their skin. For large parts of the world, the brand Mitchell now drives is, and always has been, the embodiment of the American dream. It’s workwear that makes a statement about being who you want to be, making what you want to make, and looking good while doing it.
Mitchell is a marketer and leader who’s formidable corporate credentials could mask the fact that in reality he is mainly, like the rest of us, a fan. Since childhood, he’s been an avid follower of music, sport, and style—anything creative that awakens his sense of curiosity. “We grew up in a house where there was always music playing,” says Mitchell on a call from Levi’s® New York City offices. “My Mom doesn’t like silence so leaves a radio, or a record on at all times. I grew up on the sounds of Philadelphia and Motown. A ton of jazz and soul.”