When Beyoncé breathes, she has the potential to break the internet and send her fanbase into a frenzy. So naturally, her latest drop with Levi’s, which arrives amid a major controversy unfolding with a competitor brand, didn’t exactly land quietly.
On Monday, August 4, the music icon’s fourth and final installment of her collaboration with the brand, “The Denim Cowboy,” arrived with a 90-second visual featuring her dressed in plenty of western glamour exploring western scenes before riding off into the sunset, not on a horse in keeping with her “Cowboy Carter” motifs, but on a motorcycle.
This detail alone has led many online to speculate about whether or not it signals not just the end of her “Cowboy Carter” era but also the beginning of a highly anticipated, completely rumored, rock era as her third act.
According to a release, the final installment of the REIIMAGINE campaign in collaboration with Beyoncé’s Act II “Cowboy Carter” album, will include a stunning crystal-adorned denim jacket and matching jeans set that the songstress rocks during the short film and accompanying campaign images.
This final drop arrives as American Eagle continues to spark heated discourse following a recent brand campaign starring Sydney Sweeney, declaring that she has “good jeans.” The slogan “Sydney Sweeney has good jeans,” has been contested for potentially flirting a little too heavily with fascist eugenic ideals, of a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman as having ideal jeans/genes.
Right-wing figures, including President Donald Trump, have jumped to defend the ad while bemoaning the backlash from the “woke mob.” American Eagle has since addressed the controversy by insisting it’s just about jeans, adding that their jeans are for everyone.
As those in support of the campaign defend the brand and Sweeney, they have also begun to come for Beyoncé. Without seeing a shred of irony.
An incensed Megyn Kelly took to X to complain about the ad writing, “This is the opposite of the Sydney Sweeney ad. Quite clearly, there is nothing natural about Beyonce.”
“Everything — from her image to her fame to her success to her look below — is bought and paid for,” she added. “Screams artificial, fake, enhanced, trying too hard.”
Kelly isn’t wrong in claiming Beyoncé’s ad is the “opposite” of Sweeney’s. First, Beyoncé’s latest campaign is a continuation of one launched in 2024 alongside her “Cowboy Carter” album with the hit track “Levii’s Jeans.” This campaign is Levi’s attempt not to be left out of one of the biggest conversations around Western American culture.
Going one step further, Beyoncé’s ad and her larger “Cowboy Carter” project are also quite literally celebrating the very opposite of AE’s ad featuring Sweeney: inclusion. American Eagle is propping up outdated European beauty standards while Levi’s is broadening the conversation.
“The Denim Cowboy” collection launches on Levis.com on August 7.
