The Levi Strauss & Co museum at Battery Street’s Levi’s Plaza has been closed since the pandemic, but they’ve been quietly redesigning it and overhauling it, and the museum reopens to the public in November, now three times its former size.

Levi Strauss & Co always had a free museum called The Vault at their 1055 Battery Street Levi’s Plaza HQ, with artifacts and items celebrating the denim brand's rise to global prominence since the Gold Rush days. Though that museum has been closed since the COVID  pandemic hit. But apparently behind the scenes, much of that time they have been expanding the space and bolstering its collection. And now the Chronicle reports that the Levi’s Vault Museum is reopening, and it's going to be roughly triple the size of the previous museum.  

You can’t go into the new museum right now, as per the Chronicle, it will be opening to the public “in the coming weeks.” But there is a remodeled adjacent Levi’s retail store will open today, Wednesday.

The Chronicle notes a few fascinating items that will be on view in the museum's collection: a pair of 501’s that Kurt Cobain wore, Beyoncé’s bedazzled Swarovski-studded bodysuit, and some patchwork hippie jeans that Pharrell wore on the cover of GQ. The Chronicle adds that the museum will host "two annual rotating exhibits" each year.

And the new, redesigned museum will be triple the size of the previous one housed there.

“It was about creating an experience-driven design in partnership with Levi’s — a space that felt more like a hotel lobby and a warm reception area than your typical office,” design director Nadine Beers, of the architecture firm Gensler told the Chronicle.

According to the Chron, the new Levi’s Vault museum at 1055 Battery Street will be opening to the public in “early November.”

Related: Video: Inside The Levi's Vault, A Literal Jeans Archive [SFist]

Image: @TraceyPanek via Twitter