Ignorance? Not sure what you’re talking about.
Not harmful ignorance, just people who have no idea what they’re talking about with regard to price points, fits, market positioning, availability and quality of options, etc.
Hmm, do you work in marketing?
$20 Levi’s have lasted me for ten years or more. Beat that.
Huh? The OP came in here trying to fight his ignorance and people offered a variety of opinions and experiences. Such as “I paid $XX for Y brand of jeans and they fit perfectly and lasted forever,” etc. People know what fits them and if it’s quality or not.
Jeans I have bought at Penney’s have fit better and lasted longer than expensive designer jeans I have owned. “Brand name cache” is bullshit. Utilitarian people want a product that works as advertised (fits, lasts, looks good) for the lowest possible price. You can easily find this in the $30-$50 range. Why would a person who doesn’t give a crap about “name brand cache” waste $500 on something which they could get for a fraction of the price which fits all their needs? That’s wasteful.
Most people have no understanding of proper fit or quality. For what it’s worth, as jeans skew toward the very high-end of the spectrum, they actually have much less in the way of branding and have absolutely zero “name brand cache” with a mainstream audience.
Out of curiosity, which expensive designer jeans have you owned?
Out of curiosity, why don’t you go ahead and tell the rest of us what specific examples of ignorance you’ve seen in this thread. I own several pair of designer jeans, and I still have no earthly idea what you’re on about.
I love your Doper name!
One reason people may buy expensive/designer jeans is to get a certain fit. Cheap jeans for guys, especially, tend to have, basically, a non-fit, like painter pants, or overalls. For guys especially, if you want a more fitted look, or any other kind of fit or style variation from “average” you have to check out the more expensive brands and lines. But most guys are probably fine with the basic Rustler fit.
On the other hand, wearing life doesn’t always correlate with price, as I found out with those Calvin Kleins I mentioned.
Thanks for the kind words, and I agree with the point about fit. That’s one of the reasons I’ve doled out a fair bit of money for a pair of jeans that make me look (relatively) decent.
I just don’t see much evidence of “ignorance” on that point from the posters in this thread. To me, it just looks like a collection of people who place their monetary & fashion priorities elsewhere.
You’re also right about wearing life & price. Carhartt would be an excellent example of an inexpensive & durable pant that lasts forever.
Could you explain this a bit more? Most people don’t understand what fits properly and what doesn’t? So, when a person goes shopping for jeans and I try on dozens of pairs to find the right fit (as most women do), that person doesn’t “understand” if those jeans fit them or not? I don’t agree at all. I think that most people know if something fits them and what feels comfortable and what looks good on them. This idea is just a flimsy excuse for people to justify spending $500 on jeans.
I’m a sewer and fabric junkie, and I sew a lot of clothes. I know if fabric is flimsy or quality, I know if a piece of clothing is sew well or in a shoddy manner. A $40-$50 pair of Levi’s is generally of good quality and material, keeps with the latest style, and works as advertised. “Designer jeans” I am familiar with are of a higher level of quality that is negligible over mid-level jeans, and this tiny bit higher quality does not correlate at all to the increase in price over mid-level jeans.
Even if a pair of jeans was made of the highest quality silk or wool or cashmere (i.e. fabrics much more expensive than cotton denim) and hand-sewn, they still wouldn’t be worth $500, based on the quantity and cost of fabric and labor involved. Compared to suits and dresses, a pattern for jeans just isn’t that complex and could probably be cut and sewn by an experienced seamstress in 15 minutes.
The “all you seem to be able to find these days are pleated jeans!” post is probably the most egregious what-the-fuck running, though it’s in good company. It seems a bit mean-spirited to comb through all of the responses and individually call people out on having no idea what they’re talking about with regard to the clothing industry and its available wares, so I’ll refrain. All manner of decent looking, decently made things can be had at a reasonable cost, but the number of people balking at the notion of denim costs exceeding K-Mart prices is sort of hilarious. Conversely, the number of people who seem to think that Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, et. al. are in some way “high-end expensive denim” is…odd.
I mean, I realize this place is sort of prone to knee-jerk “I DO WHAT THE FUCK I WANT AND WHO CARES IF I’M WEARING SWEATPANTS TO YOUR WEDDING” existential slob types, but damn.
kind of depends what brand you want.
To compare a pair of denim jeans to silk/wool/cashmere is to misunderstand the purpose and function of denim. Additionally, the type of Levi’s that are sold at inexpensive price points (presumably the Signature series sold through mass market retailers) are made of bad fabrics in bad cuts. Vintage Levi’s were made exceptionally well, as are some of the current lines made by the company (see: LVC, Big E, etc.).
The cost of a pair of jeans is not solely in fabric and construction, either, as denim is frequently subjected to a number of special treatments and techniques outside of what would ordinarily be seen in a garment.
As for my comment about people not understanding fit, all you need to do is take a look at the people around you. Note that men almost all wear oversized, ill-fitting clothing and women frequently wear cuts that do not flatter their body types, opting instead for whatever might be currently “fashionable” (think size 16 girl in skinny tapered jeans here).
In other words, you really can’t point to very many cases of ignorance in this particular thread. You’re just pissed that a bunch of people here don’t give a damn about jeans. Had you followed along, you would have realized that the comment about pleats was simply one poster’s mistaken terminology, and not a very good example of flagrant ignorance. Ignorant of jargon, perhaps.
What number is that, exactly? I haven’t seen a great number of them in this thread.
Here we arrive at the root of the problem. Your preconceived notions of the typical poster here are driving your accusations.
“Almost all”? Speaking of ignorance… :rolleyes:
Let me just add how much the people here really enjoy it when someone comes along, accuses an entire thread full of people of ignorance, does nothing to fight said ignorance, and goes about it all with an air of superiority.
I wasn’t suggesting that jeans actually be made of cashmere. My point was that cotton denim - no matter how special - is never going to be more expensive per yard than a fine wool or cashmere. Even the fanciest woven cotton denim isn’t going to cost so much to manufacture that it would justify a $500 price tag for one pair of normal sized jeans. It takes - what - 2 yards tops to make a pair of jeans? There’s no way that a woven cotton fabric is going to cost $250 a yard wholesale! Throw in a a zipper, heavy duty thread and some rivets; 15 minutes of skilled seamstress labor; and whatever special “treatments” you refer to, and it still would not justify the cost. You’re playing for the “brand,” pure and simple.
Please enlighten us on these special treatments. I know there are different chemical and physical treatments done to jeans to wear them in. Are you saying that these treatments are so costly that they justify such a huge price increase? Cite?
Some men purposefully choose baggy jeans because that is the fit and look they want. For example, I know a guy who loves Dickies and Carhartt clothes. He likes the way they look, the way they fit and their quality. The construction is sturdy and they are well-made and last a long time. A pair of Dickies jeans cost $24.99 on their web site. Can you explain the disconnect here?
Also I’d be interested to hear what your expertise is in clothing. Are you in the industry?
Can you define “bad fabrics” and “bad cuts”? Pants in general are a pretty simple pattern. Just slight changes in the cut are needed to change the look. A change in “cut” essentially costs nothing - just a stroke of a pencil - unless it’s a change that requires substantially more fabric. So why would a company purposely use a “bad cut”? I acknowledge that a lesser quality fabric will cost less, but there seems to be no cost difference between a “good cut” and “bad cut.”
And in regards to the quality of the denim - it’s all woven cotton, which is an inexpensive fiber, and weaving fabrics is not that complex of a process in today’s fabric mills, so there’s only so much room for increasing the expense of a fabric just based on weave. So, still, a higher quality fabric doesn’t justify the difference between a $30 and a $500 pair of jeans.
Did you stop to think about why people might think this? Because when they’re out shopping for jeans they come across a pair of Hilfiger or Calvin Klein jeans priced at $80, which is twice the amount they would pay for a pair of Levi’s which looks, wears and fits just as good (or better). Is it any wonder?? Are you a rich person who has so much disposable income that you think $80 jeans are “low end?”
Are you saying that someone who would wear a $20 pair of jeans from Wal-Mart is a slob? Because that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying. You have given absolutely no valid argument whatsoever to back this up. You haven’t even tried to provide some hard evidence or cites to disprove that these expensive jeans are nothing more than marked-up rip-offs marketed towards vain rich people who feel like they are better than everyone else because the label on their butts says “True Religion” or “Diesel” or whatever.
If earthbound knows so much about jeans, which I don’t doubt they do, maybe they would like to suggest what sort of jeans they think are best, and, if they cost $300 or something, why?
Since earthbound hasn’t come back to fill us in on the details, I did a little research myself, and it all pretty much supported my point of view that there is nothing so special about “premium” jeans that justifies the huge increase in cost.
Uber-expensive APO Jeans, which start at $1,000, are made from denim that costs $40/yard (compared to “trendy designer lines, which spend about $2/yard”.) Even this most expensive denim only makes up 8% of the cost of the jeans. In the case of APO Jeans, a lot of the cost may be accounted for in the gold, silver, and platinum buttons and rivets (even diamond-encrusted buttons). Is this the type of thing you think is so special about expensive jeans, earthbound - gold and diamond buttons?
Well maybe the cost is increased significantly by the special “techniques” earthbound refers to. You can read all about that in this New York Times article, which says that washes for premium denim companies can run $30 a pair, compared with prices as low as $2 for traditional jeans. (And let’s note that a “wash” has no impact on quality or fit, only to achieve a trendy look, something which most people in this thread are not concerned with).
So at the most expensive, we’re using 2 yards of $40/yard fancy-ass denim, and the most expensive washing and finishing at $30. Then let’s add in the seamstress labor. Let’s be generous and say that it takes 30 minutes to cut and sew these and that the seamstress is making $20/hour (which, again, is generous). So our jeans are now at $120 for costs of materials and labor. Double that for profit and you have $240 jeans. That should be the absolute maximum any jeans should ever cost, given a profit of 100%. So earthbound, please tell us why any jeans should cost any more than that?
I don’t feel particularly compelled to explain to someone who’s chomping at the bit to be dismissive.
Take a look around…