Ouch! I’ve learned to keep even the dumbest most trifling receipts.
Nothing to do with anything, but years ago there was a little store downtown that stocked nothin’ but pants, you went in and they measured your waist and inseam and gathered what you might want, jeans, or corduroys, and sent you off to the dressing room. It didn’t last long, though.
I buy Dockers to wear for work, and I never try them on any more, since they all fit exactly the same. Levis, not so much. I just bought a pair, and the same size was all over the place in different models. And the 505s I bought a few years ago were pretty tight with the same crotch to waist issue mentioned above.
I bought three pairs of Levi’s “Signature” jeans about a year ago. Don’t know if they’re the same as the Target jeans (I got mine at a Canadian Wal-Mart). I tried on one pair in my usual size. That pair fit fine, so, since they were on sale and pretty inexpensive, I grabbed two more off the shelf and bought all three.
The other two pairs might as well have been different sizes. They’re not even in the ballpark. Ridiculous.
I think I hadn’t realized how much variation there is within a size because for something like twenty years my go-to jeans were Levi’s 501’s, the shrink-to-fit kind. There’s no point in trying them on in the store – you’ve got to buy them a couple of inches over your normal waist/inseam size and wash and dry them a bunch of times before they fit.
I think I’m going back to them. They always seemed to end up fitting right, and they lasted for years.
I switched from Levis to Lee jeans a few years ago and have never looked back. Lee always fit
I’ve never had a problem with Levis. But, I’m buy my jeans the old fashioned way; I go to the store and try them on.
I ordered two pairs of Levis in the same size but different colors (not black–two shades of lighter blue). One pair was a good two sizes bigger than the other one. I just ordered another pair in the same size, and it was a different size from the other two. I may just have to give up and find a different brand.
Heavy denim is hard to fold and hard to sew. Add that to the fact that the garment worker is constantly badgered to work faster, and you get variations in size. If you try them on in the store, grabbing 3 consecutive pairs in the same stack, you might find one or two out of three that fits right. It was true 25 years ago, and it’s true today.
Today, I get my jeans from Duluth Trading Company. I also learned years ago that stone-washed and acid-washed translate to nearly worn out.
Mom worked at Levi’s back in the day, and she’s mentioned that they had something like a one-inch allowance either way in their measurements. She only rejected those that were off by more than that. Of course, this was back in the late '70s and early '80s.
It must be common. Shopping with my daughter, she finds pants she likes and wants a second pair in a different color. They didn’t have her size in the color she wanted so she bought a size up and hoped for shrinkage. Both pants fit the same.
I want to know when harvest season is.
That was back when they were made in the USA. There used to be several Blue Bell factories in nearby small towns that I know made Wrangler jeans, not sure what other brands they made. They are all gone now.
A whole inch is huge–it can be the difference between too dorkishly short, or just right. I’m not sure there still exists such a thing as “too long”. And this is the inseam we’re talking about–the longest measurement of the entire garment, in most cases.
An inch more or less in the waist area, e.g. the front and back rises, or the waist itself, is unacceptable IMHO. For me that would be the difference between uncomfortably tight versus barely-stays-on-me without a belt. I haven’t bought Levi’s in years, but I’ve found Lucky to be very reliable fit-wise, so much so that I’ve bought several pairs on Ebay. The only caveat is that I do have to ask the seller about the true inseam length, because the “R” lengths can run from 29 to 32 inches or more. As long as I do that, though, I can order with confidence.
Otherwise I’d never buy jeans without being able to try them on first, though.
I have been buying these jeans for decades . I am familiar with this problem .
I now ordered my size (online) and found out that it is wider in 1 inch then my own .
I bought levis 501 0193 33 32 made in Indonesia .My own is made in guatemala .
Of course they don’t ever obligate sell you a specific "made in " pair .
Nor they don’t have more then one country at a time .
Somebody , please do some order , why some countries and maybe different time in the
year have different sizes ?
Aloso i thought once that it had to do with the curving on the back pocket . Well it don’t.
(Some jeans are more curved in the pattern seams of the back pockets )
Apparently my older jeans are made from a thicker fabric and they dont look exactly the same … the threads are more visible in the new one and the color is not exactly the same blue .
I think it’s hard to tell according to this picture ( new= right , old= left )
P.s : I having a deja vu that they are making different jeans versions throughout the year ???
( It’s been a long time since i bought one )
I have worked in the garment industry in the US, both in the cutting room and in the pattern making department. 1/4 inch was considered a tight tolerance, but that was on each side of the pattern, 2 edges times 2 panels will give you that inch of variance. And an inch is a huge amount when it comes to the fit of a garment.
How the cloth was spread (laid onto the table) and how much tension it was under affect how much the dimensions might change from the time it was cut until it was sewn together. Ideally you don’t want to stretch the material as you are spreading to avoid this. But spreading sucks and the new guys always have to do it. The cutters can of course follow the pattern very closely or …not so much.
As noted a large percentage of people buy clothing nearly exclusively or exclusively online. I have a nice pair of Momotaros (www.momotarojeans.net) that I researched a bit, but living in Connecticut have nowhere to try on… This holds true for a lot of my clothes, mostly just research online (customer reviews incorporated.)
As to OP, different factories = different fit, and often slightly different color.