lauren sornberger

This collection was created in partnership with stylist and fashion consultant Rachael Wang. The project was a part of a new business venture for LS&Co. beginning after receiving an initial round of funding from the Board of Directors.

Bringing Rachael along the ride, Lauren owned all aspects of getting the collection created and marketed, from sourcing, production, eCommerce set-up, content development and strategy, warehousing, customer service, and last-mile delivery.

In recent years Rachael has evolved from a traditional fashion consultant to offering a more tailored approach to meet her interest in building more responsibility-minded brands, so the team set out to create the collection as responsibly as possible. The collection was made from deadstock organic hemp and organic cotton. These aspects would be used as part of the brand storytelling and partially as an educational tool for consumers; we believe that consumers want to make intelligent choices but are not being told the entire story by brands today – we would change that.

The COVID pandemic paused the collection launch, and subsequent role eliminations at LS&Co have caused the entire program to be shut down. The three-piece collection was produced and will be donated to the Levi's Red Tab Foundation.

Stylist: Rachael Wang

Photography: Zora Sicher

The &Co. business model is Lauren's brainchild after a year-long journey of brand experimentation while a member of the &Co. Ventures team.

The concept was built from the idea that the Brand-Influencer model, as we know it, was on the precipice of change. Consumers are evolving and getting smarter about sponsored posts; they demand that brands present a more realistic view of life and care about the planet. The &Co. model would combine everything Lauren learned about Gen Z consumers through research and experimentation and create a new way for consumers to shop and influencer people to use their platforms to educate consumers while building their brands.

&Co. Partnerships would not be with Instagram Influencers, but rather what they designated, Influential People. The men and women who use their social platforms to better social justice and educate consumers on the ins and out's of how the apparel industry works and, through these partnerships, create a lasting impact on how the apparel industry is run today.

The creation of the first-ever Levi.com blog: Off the Cuff was a brainchild and passion project of Lauren’s, the creation and launch was a labor of love among many teams and outside creative agencies.

My objective in this new role was to bridge the gap between brand marketing and the eCommerce teams; the two groups rarely interacted, let alone collaborated on work. The team was tasked with creating a space that would allow us to showcase all of the brand initiatives and content created upstairs and build a brand as a publisher model. Before this, we had established a one-and-done model. And this did not allow consumers to connect and engage with the brand beyond making the occasional purchase; having a content reciprocal would change this.

Beyond consumer engagement, we understood that having a home for content had tremendous SEO value; we had seen our competition beat us for search terms one too many times and decided a blog was the perfect solution.

The blog's creation also meant we had to stand up and additional team to manage the tone, voice, manage a content calendar, and editorial assignments into an already crowded pipeline of work. My team and I acted as editorial directors who then worked with our internal creative team to write and capture photo and video content. Before long, we were a four-person editorial team, churning out seven stories per week.

Off the Cuff is seen as a massive success for the Levi’s brand. It has allowed the brand to connect and engage with consumers in ways otherwise impossible, connect content + commerce into the consumer flow, and celebrate initiatives the brand has invested heavily. The Off the Cuff team was awarded an Excellence award in 2019 for it’s entrepreneurial and innovation lead work.

The Pinterest x Levi's program launched as a part of the newly formed eCommerce innovation team. The team's objective was to partner with leading technology companies to increase consumer engagement on the levi.com website. The experience provided consumers with a style quiz; based on their preferences and responses, the output was a personalized recommendation of the season's newest products. Lauren's role was to ensure the program felt on-brand for Levi's, and she was the approver for all copy and assets used.

Levi's Future Finish technology is a first of its kind technology created in the Eureka Innovation Lab. The technology allows consumers to choose from a base and apply specific customization pieces - from laser finishing, application of color buttons, or pre-determined wear patterns.

In partnership with the UX and innovation teams, the eCommerce team set out to build a best in class site experience. The program has since launched Globally, allowing fans of the Levi's brand to express themselves with our denim, as they have been since 1873.

The Virtual assistant program started as a part of the newly formed eCommerce innovation program. The eCommerce team provided the partners with compelling and relevant content to power the program.

Some things you can ask the new Levi's ® Virtual Assistant:

"Ask Levi' s®, where can I use my gift card?"

"Ask Levi' s®, how much does shipping cost?"

"Ask Levi's ® to find a store near me."

"Ask Levi's ® to help me find a pair of high-rise skinny jeans."

"Ask Levi's ® what are current promotions?"

These are just a few things you can ask your Alexa or Google Assistant to do, and we're always adding more. To learn more about how the Levi's ® Voice Assistant can help you, say:

"Ask Levi' s®, what can you do?"

The Global PR team approached Lauren's team with an opportunity of a lifetime to partner with the beautiful model, actress, and mother, Lily Aldridge. Lily was the confirmed spokeswoman for the Levi's Made & Crafter Fall 2017 look book; the eCommerce team saw a more substantial partnership opportunity. Together the two groups developed a robust content strategy that included a Q&A session with LMC designer, social content, and a full-length blog post. The partnership was so successful, and Lily went on to co-design a capsule collection the following Fall season.

In partnership with Vogue advertising we worked with stylist Havana Laffitte to build an omni-channel launch of our Fall 2016 collection. The campaign featured a shop-able landing page and dedicated email. The partnership garnered 13k impressions across all channels. 

To celebrate the Birthday of the blue jean we partnered with stylist, blogger, and designer Leandra Cohen and en-listed consumers from the streets of Manhattan to join us. The partnership included a grass-roots approach to getting people in Levi's and the opportunity to be featured in wild-postings around the city. The event was held in the meat packing district of Manhattan and despite the rain, 250 people participated to be photographed by Tommy Ton and styled by Leandra. The final product of the event was shared on social, in email, Levi.com site as well on Leandra’s own site, ManRepeller.

For the Fall 2016 campaign, we pivoted from the usual big-budget creative concept and production and instead tapped the folks walking the halls day-in and day-out; our employees. In partnership with photographer Boo George, we captured one-of-akind portraits and interviews to understand what makes Levi's so special to them. The outcome was a testament to what you can accomplish with a small budget and a few creative minds. The story can be seen in it's entirety here. 

The 501 Docu-series was created in partnership with the creative agency, Imprint Projects. The project was kicked off to capture how everyone – no matter where you live, your socioeconomic standing or age, wears and lives in their Levi’s.

We captured the stories of lives well lived from a hand-full of participants from all over the US and eventually expanded the product into Europe and Japan the local teams shared insights into the world of Levi’s devotee’s in their regions.

Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, the glory of these videos never saw a life outside of a YouTube URL however, I’m holding out hope that they will be re-surfaced one day.

The holiday shop-able video was a first of it's kind for the Levi's brand. Vue.ai approached the team with this new and innovative opportunity; we felt content like this could complement our already robust holiday shop on Levi.com.

The video was produced in Marin County and featured a family gathering for a holiday getaway. As the video progressed, consumers could shop from the player, click through a pop-up, which would take them directly to the Levi.com website to transact easily.

In an effort to breathe an elevated and sartorial point of view into our men's business we partnered with writer David Coggins to launch his book, Men and Style. The partnership included a gathering of influential designers, shop owners, and editors who site Levi's as their favorite brand and most cherished personal piece of clothing. Attendees included Aaron Levine of Abercrombie & Fitch, designer Mark McNairy and Jamie Mazur of Re/Done. We captured their stories and will launch an omnichannel campaign across levi.com and our social channels beginning in January 2017.

Denim guru's Florence and Jane from Jean Stories are self-proclaimed denim fanatics, which became very evident the moment they walked into the Levi's Eureka innovation lab. What was meant to be a routine tour turned into a partnership made in heaven. Both girls left with a personally design pair of Levi's jeans. The jeans were eventually re-made by hand and sold to 50 lucky consumers in a limited edition run on levi.com. Read the entire story here.

A pair of Levi’s is truly a blank canvas, meant to reflect a consumer’s unique style and personality. By leveraging social and SEO data, we realized that without being provoked, consumers were ripping, repairing, and painting their Levi’s and sharing it among their friends.

The Levi’s Tailor Shop page was an omnichannel undertaking, created to act as a platform for consumers to purchase already customized products, become inspired by consumers all over the world, or request an in-store appointment with a master tailor.

Since leaving the eCommerce team, there have been some updates made to the page, however, for the most part, it remains the destination Lauren and her team envisioned it should be.

The Levi's Music Project was born from the recognition of Levi’s deep-rooted presence in music history. Whether with Bruce Springsteen's Born in The U.S.A. album cover, Debbie Harry wearing her 505's on stage and must we not forget the Timberlake/Spears obscenity of 2006.

The project allowed us to celebrate these roots while giving back to a chosen collaborator’s community and hopefully peak interest in the youth of the said community to engage with music where they otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to do so. In 2016 we partnered with three artists, namely Alicia Keys, Vince Staples, and SZA.

We traveled back to each artists hometown to build a music community center in hopes of cultivating an interest in the industry and build future icons. On the artist’s behalf, we donated instruments, new media

We partnered with model, blogger and Italian style icon Chiara Ferragni to design a limited edition collection of our most cherished fit, the 501. Chiara joined us at our Eureka innovation lab to hand-pick every detail of both jeans, once complete we launched to collection exclusively on levi.com. The launch was an omni-channel effort, which included teaser + email acquisition, social posts and finally launch. A video of her visit to our innovation lab can be found here. 

At the time of Lauren’s employment with Rika, the Rika Magazine was in its an infantile stage and served as a bi-annual publication made up of equal parts fashion, entertainment, editorial content, and look book. The magazine was a brainchild of four employees enjoying a lunch, likely of bread and cheese, and quickly snowballed into full-blown print production projet Lauren input on the original content strategy, shoot production, and distribution of the publication. 10 years later, the Magazine has grown up a bit and is now distributed Globally.

The Painted desert collection was a departure of Elizabeth's previous season’s designs. Filled with ornate details, mixed textures and subtle colors the collection begged to be shot in a location as special and beautiful as itself. Lauren and Elizabeth collaborated to scout the location, photo production, and final print production of the look book.