Business Notes Fashion

All natural. No artificial ingredients. No additives. Long a part of the flackery for food products, such boasts may soon be appearing not only on what you eat but also on what you wear. Making their debut this holiday season are Levi's Naturals -- jeans fashioned from cotton whose hues are inherent in the fiber rather than the result of dying.

The unique strain of cotton was developed by Sally Fox, an entomologist who was originally looking for a naturally insect-resistant variety of cotton. She came across "coyote brown" cottonseeds that had been collected by the Department of Agriculture during the 1930s and '40s and launched a company called Natural Cotton Colours. Besides making the cotton into Natural jeans (retail price: about $27), Levi's is offering colored cotton shorts and jackets. Even the advertising attached to the jeans flogs the "natural" theme: it is printed on recycled denim. For the moment, Natural jeans are available in beige, brown and green, but Fox has her eye on the inevitable: a natural blue.