Levi’s Celebrates ‘A Complete Unknown’ Costume Design Nomination and Dylan’s Early Adoption of the Bootcut Jean

The Levi’s Haus in West Hollywood was Bob Dylan-fied on Wednesday night when the denim-maker threw a party to celebrate its collaboration with Oscar-nominated costume designer Arianne Phillips on the biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

The vinyl soundtrack was on display, along with cast photos from the film, and sweatshirts hand-stitched with Bob Dylan song lyrics.

From the film, Monica Barbaro, Eli Brown and Scott McNairy stopped by the cocktail party, and were joined by Jeremy Scott, Nico Hiraga, Sofia Boutella and more.

Costume designers’ obsession with details is similar to Levi’s obsession with details, parsing the difference between the weight of denim produced in 1961 versus 1962 for example, so the collaboration between Phillips and the brand was a perfect match.

“I reached out to Levi’s pretty early in the process because as I was looking at all this research, I realized I needed to vet the jeans, because he always wore jeans,” Phillips said of Dylan, who was played by Timothée Chalamet. “They were able to vet the jeans Bob wears in ’63, ’64 and ’65 and we started from there, and I ended up going to San Francisco, and then we worked together on 20 pairs of jeans for the film and a capsule collection.”

The jeans in the capsule collection are modeled after Dylan’s 1955 501 jeans with a bootcut insert, a modification inspired by his girlfriend Suze Rotolo (played by Elle Fanning in the film) who patched them to fit over his boots. “We just thought that was such a cool character thing, not that you would necessarily see it in the movie, but it was great for Timmy,” Phillips said of how costume helped get Chalamet into the role.

“In 2019, we did a collection all about the Greenwich Village folk revival in the early ‘60s, so then when Arianne came, we had all this research,” said Paul O’Neill, design director of Levi’s Vintage, before unpacking the limited-edition kit consisting of a leather jacket, belt, sheet music and other ephemera celebrating the film, as well as the jeans. “This was six years before Levi’s had bootcut jeans, so they were ahead of the game,” he said.

And round and round it goes; the bootcut was worn at the 2025 Grammys and by Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl. And the recreated jeans worn by Chalamet in the film are now part of Levi’s history.