Denim Dudes Founder Amy Leverton Plans Her Next Move

Amy Leverton describes herself as a Gen Xer stuck in the mind of a Gen Zer—always looking forward and pushing boundaries. Since her early days in the fashion world, she has had a bit of feistiness to her.

Straight out of fashion school, Leverton worked for an online-only platform as a designer. After leaving, she moved on to Next, which she describes as “the Target of the U.K., but a bit more mumsy than that, even.” At the time, her designs pushed the limits and got left out of assortments. But a few years later, she said, the designs that had been cast aside started to make an appearance on racks.

“I remember my old boss texting me…She said, ‘We’re putting all of your garments into work now.’ I was trying so hard to design clothes that were a bit more backward, and it was still too forward for them. But sure enough, in two years’ time, the designs were bang on. [Forecasting] was always in my DNA.”

Leverton later left the design world in favor of forecasting, which gave her more space for zany ideas and future-forward analysis. She began working at trend forecasting company WGSN, and later helped build Stylesight, which eventually merged with WGSN, putting Leverton back at the company where she had started her forecasting career.

For her, while she had enjoyed designing, she quickly found forecasting more gratifying. “There are lots of roles within the fashion, but for me it’s like, I can do other things, but this is what I know I’m really good at,” she said. “Since 2007, I’ve been like, this is it.”

Leverton eventually decided to leave WGSN to move to Los Angeles to freelance and start her own business. Her consultancy, Denim Dudes, began after she wrote a book with the same namesake. She decided to create an Instagram account to accompany the book, which she published in 2015.

“Honestly, I started the Instagram feed just because Instagram was in its infancy and I figured, if I’m putting a book out, people might search Instagram for Denim Dudes, so I should just get the handle.”

The Denim Dudes page now has over 100,000 followers. The book helped her gain notoriety beyond the B2B forecasting space, bringing more of her ideas to consumers and putting her work directly in front of brands. From there, the business started to come together, and Leverton registered Denim Dudes as a company in 2016.

Social Switches

Apps like Instagram and TikTok have completely modified the denim landscapes—for brands and consultants like Leverton alike, she said. Because of that, Leverton’s approach to forecasting has changed, particularly with the rise of Instagram and TikTok.

“Before [social media], to make a good forecast, you were going to trade shows, seeking out inspiration, then gathering it in and making sense of it and putting it out there. It felt more journalistic,” she said. “I think now…it’s like filtering through the wall of information and making it make sense to people, and we just absolutely love that. It’s honestly like doing a jigsaw puzzle—putting all the elements together in a narrative that makes sense.”

While influencers and others releasing social media content have altered the way the business looks, Leverton said forecasting is a niche business that, particularly for denim, combines a great deal of historical knowledge, current-day trend watching, and expertise.

“We cite all of these different touchpoints that are happening in the world—it could be anything from mob wife aesthetic, to the Barbie movie, to girl dinner. We scoop it all in, and we sift through it and make sense of it,” she said. “Then we drill it down to, when I’m designing my next jean, what do I do? How does girl dinner affect denim design?”

Though Leverton’s work has evolved because of the rise of social media, she said brands’ outlook has changed even more markedly to adapt to Gen Z’s expectations and social media-powered influence.

“10 years ago, brands were telling consumers what they should wear and what they believed to be cool, and as consumers we were like, ‘Okay, cool,’” she said. “Now it very much feels like the other way around, so, much like men and the patriarchy, I think brands are sort of navigating this switch of power,” she said.

While other generations have, at times, dictated style in the same way, she said she doesn’t foresee Gen Z and millennials reverting to taking direction from brands in the future. She also believes that brands need to be ready to compete with smaller “bedroom makers” as younger generations begin to spend money with smaller creators, rather than exclusively with brands.

Brand Bonds

Denim Dudes has worked with several brands in the past few years—from Levi’s, to G-Star Raw, to Gap and more. While each brand presents a different set of challenges, Leverton said, by and large, “trends are trends.”

“They’re all such different brands with such different customers and such different DNA. It’s a joy to step inside those shoes. I think, also, as someone who has worked at brands, I understand that when you’re in the day-to-day slog, you don’t have the bandwidth or the ability to step outside of that, and so I think these brands really value outsider perspective,” she said.

That perspective comes in a variety of forms, like small, one-off projects to years-long relationships and candid conversations. In many cases, Leverton helps brands analyze trends, how they fit into a brand’s heritage and identity and how competitors might embrace them.

Even though Leverton helps brands predict what’s next, her world lacks predictability in terms of the projects that come her way. “I think with trend forecasting, it’s a very broad skill set that you can apply to many different areas. We could be helping someone source trims one day and analyzing fabric and weave construction another and then tackling brand identity the next,” she said.

Leverton has also helped mills design capsule collections over time, but as Denim Dudes starts to change form, she said she wants to focus more on creating content and forecasting. However, she noted that Denim Dudes will still work on certain capsule collections to stay in the loop on what’s happening with specific new fabrics and to continue to be inspired.

Budding Business

For years, Leverton has curated the trend forecast at each Kingpins show, both in New York and Amsterdam.

Her relationship with the trade show began during her time at WGSN, but when Leverton left WGSN and went solo, the show met her with a unique offer: Andrew Olah, Kingpins’ founder, wanted her to complete the trend forecast as a freelancer, and Kingpins would own the content.

That structure worked well for Leverton for many years, but this year, she decided it was time that she owned the forecast herself. That, in part, is because she wants the business to grow rather than continuing to “tread water” in the way she said it has been doing for the past five years.

“It was something I’d wanted to do for a long time,” she said. “The idea is that we would focus more on creating content for a website and selling the subscription model and then building slowly from there.”

Leverton currently has one other full-time employee working with her at Denim Dudes: Shannon Reddy. But if she has her way, that team will expand to help juggle content creation, forecasting, speaking engagements and more.

She hopes that kind of growth will come from adding a subscription model to her business, a project she is actively working on. Her seasonal forecasts would be part of the subscription, alongside other exclusive content and access to her company’s Denim Directory, which focuses on raw material innovation, construction, washes, finishes and more.

Leverton knows the subscription-based model could take time to build, but she has aspirations to leverage—and further create—community in the denim realm.

“I don’t expect to build a new, huge WGSN, although you never know—I’m not ruling it out!” she joked. “But personally, I think those who work in the denim industry understand that there is a need for forecasting that is specialized to them and their segment, and I think that we [can] build a platform that fleshes [that] out [based on] our offerings that we have so far,” she said.

Because some of Denim Dudes’ content has been free to access up until this point, Leverton knows she’ll have to be strategic about how she monetizes future content. She said ensuring students and small designers still have access to Denim Dudes’ work is important to her.

“It’s definitely front and center of my mind of just how to make this accessible to all whilst still [allowing] us paying our bills and making sure that those brands who do have the funds do actually pay,” she said.

Leverton has also launched a series of Los Angeles-based events with Erin Barajas, formerly of Kingpins.

“Erin and I go way back and have traveled the world together through past Kingpins events, so we know each other so well and have built a strong friendship over the years in L.A. We also work very seamlessly together; Erin is a production whiz and our taste levels and creative vision for the events are completely in sync. It’s our absolute focus to put our passion for community and inspiration first and foremost,” Leverton said.

The two call the series Here|After, which Leverton said is a nod to reflecting on the L.A. community now, while also looking to the future. The first event took place in June, and designers from brands like Guess, Good American, True Religion, Paige and Frame Denim attended.

Leverton said she and Barrajas plan to host one Here|After event each season, which will help further elevate the work Denim Dudes does. The duo will focus on a different topic for each discussion and will align with appropriate partners for each iteration of its events.

“What was most overwhelmingly obvious to Erin and me was that L.A. was hungry for community, inspiration and education. We live in complicated and difficult times, and I’ve predominantly viewed our denim industry through the lens of the designer, whose job is becoming more and more challenging,” Leverton said. “The Here|After event series is a natural extension of our forecasts and bringing the audience in on these conversations will only help to strengthen and elevate our work at Denim Dudes.”