Denim Merchants Fight Three-Way Battle for Blue Jean Bonanza

The jeans wars haven’t been this fiery since the premium denim boom two decades ago. 

Amid Black Friday sales, holiday shopping and high-profile ad campaigns, a three-way struggle has broken out this year between Levi’s, American Eagle and Gap.

Ad It All Up

You’ve seen the ads: Beyonce in Levi’s, Sydney Sweeney, and now Martha Stewart, in American Eagle’s jeans. The front lines of 2025’s Great Denim Wars have been on device screens and TVs. Denim brands have upped their TV marketing budgets by 70% this year, according to data from TV outcomes company EDO seen by CNBC last week.

The spending spike makes plenty of sense: The global jeans market has grown 28% over the past five years, reaching $101 billion in 2025, according to Euromonitor International data seen by CNBC.

For all three players, the denim boom has had a considerable effect on the bottom line:

• During its third-quarter earnings call in November, Gap reported its seventh consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales growth, which the company credited in part to its “Better in Denim” digital ad campaign starring the female pop group Katseye.
• American Eagle, meanwhile, continues to be one of the hottest (somewhat politicized) meme stocks of the year; its share price is up 128% in just the past six months. Meanwhile, Levi’s denim ads have proven more than 300% more effective than the average clothing advertisement, per EDO data.

Wide Jeans, Wide Margins: Driving the trend in part? While ‘big jeans’ might be en vogue, no single style is completely driving the trend, meaning consumers can stock up on all sorts of cuts, colors and fits. Rest easy, panicking millennials: Your old skinny jeans aren’t entirely out of fashion. But you could always, you know, let them stretch out a bit, depending on the fabric, of course.