Levi Strauss last went public nearly half a century ago, when San Francisco-based denim jeans company launched an initial public offering in 1971. Both blue jeans and Levi Strauss have had plenty of ups and downs since then, but the company is venturing out again.

Its planned return to the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday is not exactly a triumph — adjusted for inflation, a 1996 buyback valued the company at nearly four times its anticipated IPO valuation of about $6bn. But Levi Strauss is like a vintage pair of jeans: it has been through turmoil and become distressed, but it has endured.

Great brands have this quality — they can be mistreated or stretched for years at a time, but they have a strong enough identity to survive. Levi Strauss has had so many mishaps since its eponymous founder launched the first pair of riveted jeans in 1873 that it could have failed. It did not, thanks to its brand and the Haas family of Strauss relatives that inherited control in 1902.