Michelle Gass Is Rewriting the Levi’s Playbook — and Wall Street Is Finally Paying Attention

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Two years ago, Michelle Gass walked into one of the most storied brand companies in American fashion and immediately started ripping things apart. Not the jeans — the strategy. As CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., Gass has orchestrated a transformation that has pushed the 171-year-old denim maker’s stock up more than 80% over the past year, a run that has turned skeptics into believers and forced analysts to reconsider what a legacy apparel company can become in 2025.

The numbers tell a compelling story. But the real narrative is about something harder to quantify: a CEO who arrived from Kohl’s — where her tenure ended on a sour note — and managed to earn credibility inside a company where the founding family still holds enormous sway.

According to Yahoo Finance, Gass has thrived at Levi’s by executing a direct-to-consumer pivot that reduces the company’s dependence on wholesale partners, a strategy she’s paired with aggressive international expansion and a renewed focus on women’s apparel. That last piece matters enormously. For decades, Levi’s was synonymous with men’s denim. Gass wants it synonymous with denim, full stop.

She took over from Chip Bergh in January 2024, inheriting a company that was already moving in the right direction but hadn’t yet convinced Wall Street it could sustain momentum. Bergh had stabilized the business after Levi’s went public again in 2019, but growth had plateaued. The stock was stuck. Gass’s mandate was clear: accelerate.

And she has.

Levi’s direct-to-consumer sales now account for roughly half of total revenue, up from about a third just a few years ago. The company’s owned stores and e-commerce channels carry higher margins than wholesale, which means every percentage point of DTC mix shift drops more profit to the bottom line. Gass has been relentless about this. She’s opened new stores in high-traffic locations, invested in the digital experience, and pulled back from lower-tier wholesale accounts that dilute the brand.

The women’s business is the other engine. Levi’s has historically under-indexed with female consumers relative to the brand’s cultural footprint. Women wore Levi’s — they just didn’t buy them at the same rate as men. Gass, who spent years at Starbucks before running Kohl’s, recognized this as an enormous gap. Not a problem. An opportunity.

Under her leadership, Levi’s has expanded its women’s assortment significantly, investing in fits, fabrics, and marketing campaigns that speak directly to female consumers. The company’s women’s revenue has been growing at a faster clip than its men’s business for several consecutive quarters. This isn’t accidental. It’s the result of deliberate product development and marketing spend directed at a demographic that was underserved by a brand they already loved.

The international push adds another dimension. Levi’s generates a substantial portion of its revenue outside the United States, and Gass has targeted markets in Asia and Europe where denim penetration is growing. China remains a long-term bet — one complicated by geopolitical tensions and a sluggish Chinese consumer economy — but India and Southeast Asia represent faster-growth opportunities where Levi’s brand recognition is strong and competition from premium denim labels is thinner.

There’s also the question of what Levi’s is shedding. In early 2024, the company announced it would explore strategic alternatives for its Dockers brand, the khaki-focused label that had become a drag on overall performance. Dockers was once a billion-dollar business. It isn’t anymore. Gass made the call to stop pretending it would recover under Levi’s ownership and instead focus capital and management attention on the core denim brand. That kind of discipline — knowing what to cut — is often what separates good CEOs from great ones.

Wall Street has responded. Analysts at several major banks have upgraded the stock over the past twelve months, citing improved execution, margin expansion, and the credibility Gass has built with investors. The company’s most recent quarterly earnings topped expectations on both the top and bottom lines, and management raised its full-year guidance — a move that signals internal confidence.

But not everyone is convinced the rally has room to run. Some analysts point to macroeconomic headwinds, including persistent inflation in key markets and the potential for consumer spending to soften in the second half of 2025. Tariff uncertainty also looms. Levi’s sources product from factories across Asia, and any escalation in trade tensions between the U.S. and its manufacturing partners could squeeze margins. The company has been diversifying its supply chain, but these shifts take time and money.

There’s a biographical wrinkle that makes Gass’s success at Levi’s particularly notable. Her departure from Kohl’s was not a victory lap. She left the department store chain in late 2022 after a relatively brief stint as CEO, during which the company struggled with declining traffic, an ill-fated partnership with Sephora that hadn’t yet gained traction, and an activist investor pushing for a sale. The narrative at the time was that Gass had been outmaneuvered. That she wasn’t up to the task of turning around a mid-tier retailer in structural decline.

Levi’s offered a different canvas. A globally recognized brand with pricing power, cultural cachet, and a product — denim — that has proven remarkably resilient across economic cycles. Gass didn’t need to reinvent the product. She needed to reinvent how it was sold and to whom.

Her background at Starbucks, where she spent 16 years and rose to lead the Americas business, gave her fluency in brand-building and direct consumer relationships. At Starbucks, she helped architect the company’s loyalty program and digital ordering infrastructure — capabilities that translate directly to what Levi’s is trying to do with its own DTC channels. The Kohl’s detour, in retrospect, looks less like a failure and more like a mismatch. Gass is a brand operator. Kohl’s needed a turnaround artist. Different skill sets.

So what comes next? Gass has outlined a multi-year plan that targets mid-single-digit revenue growth and continued margin expansion, driven by DTC gains, women’s growth, and international scale. She’s also investing in brand heat — the intangible quality that makes consumers choose Levi’s over cheaper alternatives. Collaborations with designers, cultural partnerships, and a renewed emphasis on Levi’s heritage have all contributed to a brand perception that feels more premium without alienating the core customer who buys 501s at the mall.

The company’s recent moves suggest Gass is also thinking about adjacencies. Beyond denim, Levi’s has been expanding into tops, outerwear, and accessories — categories that increase basket size and give the brand a bigger share of the consumer’s closet. This is a playbook borrowed from companies like Nike and Ralph Lauren, both of which have successfully extended their core identities into broader lifestyle positioning.

One risk worth watching: execution fatigue. Transformations of this scope require sustained investment and organizational energy. Levi’s has a relatively lean corporate structure, and pushing simultaneously into new geographies, new product categories, and new channels puts strain on the organization. Gass will need to keep her leadership team intact and motivated — no small feat when the stock price has already moved this much and equity-based compensation packages are deep in the money.

Another risk is the cyclical nature of fashion. Denim is having a moment right now, with wide-leg and barrel fits driving newness in a category that can sometimes feel static. But fashion cycles turn. If skinny jeans come roaring back — or if denim fatigue sets in — Levi’s will need to prove it can ride the wave in both directions.

For now, though, the momentum is real. Gass has done something that looked improbable when she was announced as Bergh’s successor: she’s made Levi Strauss feel like a growth company again. The stock reflects that. The product reflects that. And the strategic clarity — DTC, women’s, international, shed the distractions — reflects a CEO who knows exactly what she wants to build and is moving fast to build it.

Whether the next two years are as productive as the first two will depend on factors both within and beyond her control. Tariffs, consumer confidence, currency fluctuations, competitive dynamics — all of these will shape the outcome. But if the early returns are any indication, Michelle Gass has found the right company at the right time. And Levi’s has found the right CEO.