New York City pedestrians go about their daily business, headed hither and yon as actress Pam Grier looms above them on a Levi’s billboard. This was in 1998, shortly after Grier had hit national radar screens again in Quentin Tarantino’s crime flick Jackie Brown. She’d been working steadily through the nineties, but that film was her first starring role in years. She knocked it out of the park and triggered a career reassessment by critics and fans. The movie is even considered by some Tarantino experts to be his best. We wouldn’t say that, but we think it’s very good.
You notice the slogan on the billboard is “Our models can beat up their models.” We suppose that was a swipe at high fashion jean brands like Calvin Klein. It also happens to be true—Grier surely could have beaten up the likes of Kate Moss and Brooke Shields. Not content to share only the photo, we also found a print of the billboard, and that appears below. Grier is a favorite star around here, one of the queens of ’70s cinema generally, and blaxploitation particularly. Any excuse to have her on our website is one we’ll jump at.
As an additional note, Levi’s obtained the rights to bolster this campaign with other icons—mostly dead ones. They published similar ads starring Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando (circa 1953), and seemingly the entire cast of The Wild One. The only other contemporary model we found was boxer Oscar de la Hoya. This all must have cost absolute assloads, but it was probably money well spent—the ads were a reminder that, despite the sleek upstart brands, Levi’s was still top of the blue jean heap.
