For their SS2026 campaign, Levi’s wanted a cool person to creatively direct. Naturally, that person was Dev Hynes.
We imagine the email conversation to go something along the lines of: “Hello music polymath, Blood Orange brain, style intuitor, person who’s been setting the mood since we were all tweens. Our brief is simple: take the grungiest, most preppy pieces in the collection and make them interesting.” Hynes, king of grunge era, understood the assignment of course. The campaign was shot with long-time collaborator and photographer Katharina Korbjuhn in LA, where the whole concept stemmed from a single informal phone call. For some, it’s really just that easy.
Dev has never really fallen off what’s considered hip. With everyone currently posting their pics from 2016, we actually would really like to excavate a little further (into his 2012 camera roll specifically, the golden hipster age when he first started influencing us). Back in that distinct finger-moustache and Tumblr era (don’t pretend you weren’t there), we all wore plaid button-downs tied around our waists (skinny jeans and Timbs mandatory).
It’s easy to read those references into this campaign: the plaid shirt layered over jeans is resurrected from the ashes of snobby coffee nerds and lumberjacks, but because this is Dev Hynes in 2026, the button-down is twisted to have the back in the front and the knot in the back, becoming more like a skirt-over-pants situation. Or even kind of an apron moment, if you think about it. Very now. Also: camo pants held down by a boulder. Keep us grounded, Dev, why not.
Words by Pykel van Latum
