Levi's, Loopwheeler and Beams craft Super Wide workwear for Beams' 50th

Levi's, Loopwheeler and Beams have joined forces for a Super Wide collection that marks Beams' 50th anniversary in 2026. The three-way collaboration pairs an American casual staple with Japan's traditional loopwheel knitting technology, rebuilding Levi's workwear in fabric normally reserved for sweatshirts.

The collection revives the Super Wide silhouette that gained popularity in earlier Levi's x Beams collaborations, now cut from Loopwheeler's signature suspended French terry. Skilled artisans produce the fabric on rare loopwheel knitting machines that still run in Wakayama, the prefecture long associated with Japan's slowest, softest knitwear.

The lineup comprises six styles in total: two colors each for the jacket, the pants and a bandana. Heather gray and navy are the two options across the board. The jacket is the Super Wide Type I Jacket, based on Levi's classic Type I, with a wide body and Loopwheeler name tags on the cuffs and front pockets.

The matching Super Wide Pants carry a back patch bearing the Loopwheeler and Beams names and a clip-on tag on the front pocket. The back pockets keep Levi's iconic arcuate stitching, picked out in contrasting colors against the soft terry. The bandanas incorporate vintage Levi's bandana patterns.

Loopwheeler's suspended French terry is the thread running through the whole drop. Loopwheel knitting is a slow, low-tension process that lets air into the loops, giving the fabric its softness and drape. The rarity of the vintage machines in Wakayama is central to the collaboration's craft story, and a short documentary follows that production.

The documentary, set for release, traces the Wakayama factory behind Loopwheeler, capturing the process of turning yarn into fabric. Prices are set at 58,300 yen for the jacket, 49,500 yen for the pants and 4,400 yen for the bandana, all including tax.

A campaign shot in Oakland

The campaign visuals were shot in Oakland, California. They feature Max Schaaf, the professional skateboarder who founded 4Q Conditioning and is known as a custom bike builder, alongside his younger friend Steven Orellana. The two ride vintage bikes through a depiction of American culture passed down across generations.

Schaaf is not the only name attached to the launch. A release event on Friday, October 16 at BEAMS Harajuku brings Leo Gamboa from Levi's, Loopwheeler representative Satoshi Suzuki, and BEAMS buyers Takehiko Suzuki and Keita Kobayashi to the stage to share the story behind the collection's making.

Where and when to buy

The collection releases Saturday, October 17 at BEAMS Harajuku, BEAMS JAPAN in Shinjuku and BEAMS JAPAN Kyoto. It then lands sequentially from Thursday, October 22 on Levi's official online store and select stores worldwide, followed by BEAMS America from Friday, October 23.

At the three domestic stores, customers who buy the jacket and pants together enter a lottery for a special edition T-shirt. Made with Loopwheeler's suspended jersey, the shirt carries a Levi's Saddleman graphic on the back, specially arranged for this collection. The October 16 event runs 19:00 to 21:00, with the talk starting at 20:00.

Admission to that event is free and no product sales take place on the day.

Beams is one of Japan's defining select retailers and the anniversary gives the collaboration its occasion. Loopwheeler is the specialist knitwear label built around those aging Wakayama machines. Levi's brings the workwear archive the other two are remixing, a position we know well from our coverage of style.

Loopwheeler has made a name for sweatshirt fabric with a hand-feel modern knits struggle to match, and that reputation is the collection's hook. The Type I jacket has been reimagined in the same material as this label's sweatshirts, an unusual pairing of garment categories that is the collaboration's central idea.

The Super Wide silhouette itself has run once before through Levi's x Beams collaborations, so this anniversary edition reads as a refinement of an established shape rather than a new experiment. The difference now is the Loopwheeler fabric and the Wakayama provenance behind it, which the documentary is set to underline.

For collectors of Japanese craft and American workwear, the six-style lineup is a tightly edited statement. No new colors beyond heather gray and navy, no additional pieces beyond the three formats.

What comes next

The sequence of launches carries the collection from Tokyo through Levi's global channels and on to BEAMS America across a six-day window.