This week’s launch of Beyoncé’s ad campaign for Levi Strauss & Co. seems to have only ratcheted up the cultural debate around jeans — of all things.

While some Republicans, including U.S. President Donald Trump and commentator Megyn Kelly, have weighed in about the new American Eagle Outfitters advertising that features actress Sydney Sweeney, Beyoncé’s fan base chimed in on social media about her new ads for Levi’s. Like “The White Lotus” actress, the multi-Grammy-winning Knowles models a denim-on-denim look with blonde hair. Knowles’ “Live in Levi’s” ads feature her wriggling out of a pair of Levi’s at a laundromat, waitressing in Daisy Duke cutoffs and then playing pool in a dive bar before speeding away on a motorcycle.

A Levi’s spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday about the cultural debate that has developed from its new ads with Beyoncé, and American Eagle’s new campaign with Sweeney. Media requests to AEO and its outside public relations firm Shadow were not acknowledged.

Whatever the impetus or undertones of either campaign — whether intended, nuanced or not — Wall Street seemed to approve. American Eagle’s stock was up 6.7 percent Wednesday, closing at $12.82 per share, and Levi Strauss’ stock finished up nearly 2 percent on Wednesday, closing at $20.38 per share.

After being told that Sweeney was a registered Republican in Florida, Trump posted on Truth Social, “#SydneySweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ‘em Sydney.” The company’s stock jumped up by 23.5 percent Monday, after closing slightly down on Aug. 1.

On Tuesday, Kelly stoked the fires by suggesting that Beyoncé’s campaign “is the opposite” of Sweeney’s ad and saying, “Quite clearly there is nothing natural about Beyoncé.”

The “Cowboy Carter” creator’s next collaboration with Levi’s is being introduced Thursday, but some of Levi’s 9.6 million Instagram followers have shown signs of approval. A photo of the musician in an embellished Canadian tuxedo had 72,600 likes Wednesday afternoon. The singer’s song “Levii’s Jeans” with rapper Post Malone has fashion cues, too, with lyrics like “denim on denim on denim on denim.” Beyoncé already has a base of 310 million followers on her Instagram.

Last year in an earnings call, Levi’s chief executive officer Michelle Gass said, “Denim is having a moment, and the Levi’s brand is having a powerful moment around the world. I don’t think there’s any better evidence or proof point than having someone like Beyoncé, who is a culture shaper, to actually name a song after us.”

Politics and jeans have collided before. In 1995, a Calvin Klein jeans commercial featuring models being asked to undress by an anonymous man behind a camera caused outrage. U.S. President Bill Clinton publicly chastised the “half-dressed adolescents” in Klein’s ads and C.J. Doyle of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called the images “cynical, exploitative and immoral.” The American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, said it would boycott all retailers who carried the jeans.

Klein was eventually investigated by the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, though charges against the designer were dropped after the company proved that its models were of age. The commercials, however, were ultimately pulled from the air.

The Brooklyn Museum’s senior curator of fashion and material culture Matthew Yokobosky said the uproar around both campaigns reveals how deeply denim is tied to the American identity, and how it still stands as a symbol of rebellion and freedom, especially globally. “What’s striking now is that language is the controversy, not the jeans themselves. No one is saying those jeans don’t fit, or they are cut badly. It’s about how ‘genes’ and ‘jeans’ get tangled up, and what’s being implied about bodies and beauty in that wordplay.”

Kent State University’s professor Catherine Amoroso Leslie said denim has been a political symbol historically. She said, “During the Civil Rights Movement, there was an adoption of denim as a common fabric of the working people. In the case of American Eagle and Levi’s today, there may be a gravitation toward one brand or the other based on politics. This would be largely due to endorsements or criticisms of advertisements from politicians and media figures.”

In 2022, research led by Oded Netzer, Columbia Business School’s vice dean for research, found that 54 percent of American Eagle’s followers in “X” were Democrats and 46 percent of its “X” followers were Republicans. That was part of a survey that measured the political affiliation of hundreds of brands. AEO’s results were “slightly left-leaning, but less so than other fashion brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Urban Outfitters or the Gap,” Netzer said.

In 2022, Abercrombie & Fitch’s “X” followers were 63 percent Democratic and 37 percent Republican, whereas Urban Outfitters was 73 percent Democratic and 27 percent Republican, and Gap was 69 percent Democratic and 31 percent Republican.

Jeans are major business for brands like American Eagle, Levi’s, Hudson, H&M, Uniqlo and more. The global denim jeans market size was estimated at $86.66 billion last year and it is projected to reach $121.5 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 5.9 percent from 2025 to 2030, according to Grand View Research. The North American denim market accounted for a revenue share of 31.2 percent last year. Ever-changing consumer trends and product innovations with designs, styles, and colors are fueling the demand for jeans.

Toni Holt Kramer, founder and president Trumpettes USA, Inc., said she loves the American Eagle campaign so much that she will be sending all of her friends for their birthdays and Christmas a pair of American Eagle jeans with a photo of Sydney Sweeney “to hang on their closet doors, as an inspiration.”

Emma McClendon, assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John’s University, said the reaction to the Sweeney ads highlight the unique role jeans play in American culture. She said, “Denim is deeply tied to national identity, and we’re in a moment where that identity feels unstable. People are actively debating who gets to be American and what the country stands for.”

In that context, she said, American Eagle’s use of genetics “feels, at best, tone-deaf and clearly meant to provoke.” While brands have used sex and controversy to sell jeans before, as was the case with Calvin Klein’s 1980 Brooke Shields campaign and Abercrombie & Fitch’s “hyper-sexualized” catalogues [that were photographed by Bruce Weber from 1997 to 2007], McClendon said “bringing genetics into the mix is new.” She said, “It reflects a broader shift in how we think about bodies right now: not just as idealized, but as things that can be optimized or engineered, especially in the age of GLP-1s and Oura rings. What really stands out to me is that this came from American Eagle — a brand that, less than a decade ago, was known for championing body positivity with its Aerie line.”

Drexel University’s Joseph Hancock speculated that the American Eagle ads could be a play on liberal ideology. He said, “After all, Sweeney was in ‘The White Lotus’ — very gay — and she has appeared to be quite open-minded.” He said the campaign could have intended to demonstrate diversity, since Sweeney herself corrects the spelling of “Genes” in one spot to writes “Jeans.”

Her quote, “’Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue,’” could be more a play on diversity than conservative ideologies, according to Hancock. “Think red is Republican and blue is Democrat.”

And Hancock noted that jeans do not stand for a conservative agenda, but for a revolution. He noted how in the film “Rebel Without a Cause,” James Dean fought against the conservative nature of his parents wearing jeans, and the movie caused jean sales to sour. Hancock said, “So much that Levi’s built factories in London. And let’s always remember that jeans were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss, a Jewish tailor.”

Mohsin Sajid, a denim specialist and designer, offered another take. He said, “American Eagle should of had a few other beautiful girls from other races saying the same tagline. Then there wouldn’t have been such an issue at all.”