In a hype-fueled industry, how much you can get for your Levi’s depends on how good a story you’re telling.
overnight. It didn’t take long for the once-secretive specialty to become a garden-variety side hustle for cash-hungry gig workers. When chef Carmy inis short on money, he turns to — what else? — his collection of vintage Levi’s. “This is original, big-redline selvedge, all right? From 1944,” he says knowingly. “You can get $1,250 for that on eBay, tonight.”
Each big sale prompts a flurry of headlines — and further agitates fissures in a business that was once guided by expertise, reputation, and working-class margins. Perhaps no single pair has chafed quite like Eaton’s 19th-century Levi’s, which brought out the eye-rolling skeptics. Eaton first parlayed his success as a word-of-mouth reseller into a brick-and-mortar store in Durango that he named Carpe Denim. Over time, his hard-won collection became the blueprint for New York–based design houses keen to replicate heritage pieces for their lines. “I did a quarter-million dollars a year selling to Ralph Lauren and the Gap and Levi’s. Abercrombie & Fitch was a huge one. I had, like, ten different designers from Abercrombie I worked with,” he says.
At one point, we are walking up the side of a hill so steep I grasp for exposed roots. At another, I am left to mind four Australian-shepherd-mix puppies while my host puts a cauliflower-crust pizza in the oven. Every now and again, a goat sprays pellets from beneath its shuttlecock tail.
That financial uncertainty, and renovations in Durango, sparked an idea that snowballed. “It wasn’t like,” Eaton says of what became a three-day “Woodstock of Denim” at which he auctioned off the 19th-century Levi’s. “It was more like, ” he says. “You don’t have to be the hoity-toity guy who’s best friends with Ralph Lauren’s top buyer to get into our show.”
Last September, denim hustlers of all generations attended Eaton’s first-ever Durango Vintage Festivus at the Tico Time River Resort RV park in Aztec, New Mexico. Haupert and his buddies drove the 12 hours from San Diego to be there. Larry McKaughan, Marie Barbera, and Drew Heifetz also came, along with Eric Schrader from the 2017 jeans documentaryBarbera considered it an opportunity to raid Eaton’s expansive collection.
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