So, I think that’s how we’re thinking about gross margins. And as you know, a large piece of what we sell is core. We brought a lot of newness into our assortment with the 501 150th anniversary and so all that helps. I hope that addresses your question, Bob.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Boss of JPMorgan. Your question please, Matthew.
Matthew Boss: So maybe, Chip, could you just update us on health of the Levi’s brand, maybe what you’re seeing in the U.S. and Europe marketplace today as it relates to the denim category? And then, Harmit, to your point before, any change in the pricing strategy just given the dynamic consumer backdrop out there?
Chip Bergh: Sure. So let me first talk the category since that’s part of your question. And I think you all know that the data that we get on a quarterly basis is U.S. only, still a major part of our business. We don’t get the rest of the world on a quarterly basis. But sort of as we had thought would expect the category is back to growth again in the quarter in the most recent quarter is up 1%. That’s on top of a prior year quarter of up 16%. So if you remember in the last call, we talked about how coming out of the pandemic, we saw a big spike in denim. And then we had two quarters of kind of mid-single-digit softness. We’re back to growth now, and that’s good. That 1% growth in the category compare that to what we reported in our U.S. DTC business with record volume that was up low double digits.
So we are clearly gaining share. We talked about it in the prepared remarks. We are now the outright leader in men’s and women’s 18- to 30-year old jeans market after gaining one point of value share in the past 12 months and past three months and we continue to grow share in women’s denim bottoms, closing the gap. We are now knocking on the door being the number one brand in the U.S. That has not happened in my entire 11.5 years at this company. And we continue to have momentum while others are struggling. In terms of brand equity, a couple of things, I guess the first thing I would point to is just the strength of our overall DTC business where we are in control of the brand and how we engage with the consumer and how we show up. It shows up in the business results.
Our global DTC business delivered a record quarter. We were up 16% versus prior year. We comped positively in all regions. Our e-commerce business was up double digits, too. I think that kind of speaks to — consumers are still coming to this brand. And one other data point is as we do our brand equity studies around the globe, we do get a price perception for Levi’s, and this is price perception, right? But Levi’s jeans as a leader in being worth paying more for, for quality and longevity, and we — as a result of that, we’re pretty well positioned to continue to navigate through this inflationary period. And I don’t think we said it in the prepared remarks, but our AURs were up mid-single digits again this quarter despite the promotional environment.
