Why I Only Wear Levi’s Jeans

Death to fashion jeans. A curse upon rhinestones, artificial distress marks, and fancy stitching. A pox on them and all their ilk. Your father got by just fine with Levi’s, as did his father before him, and then his father before him. They showed up to work or in the garage with simple, clean blue denim devoid of skulls, feathers, or any other kind of fancy-schmancy design. And you know what? They got the job done, the men in your family laid, and you born. Time to pick up that heritage.

If I’m wearing blue jeans, I only wear Levi’s anymore. There are several reasons for this. They never go out of style, or become “last-years brand.” The cuts are reliable and available everywhere. Speaking of which, they are always on sale somewhere. There is no reason to pay full price for a pair of Levis. $30 gets me a pair of pants that last 1-2 years, and I wear them hard. The pairs I wash less or wear less frequently are going on 3 years. That’s good looking pants for $10 a year!

Sears of all places is my go-to spot for picking up a new pair. They are cheap as dirt there, but with the same selection and sizes of any glitzy mall store. The jeans the Strauss built have the great dual quality of being neither pretentious nor low rent. I don’t know what the positive version of the dual-edged sword metaphor is, but we’ve found an example here. Levi’s are neither anything to be ashamed of or proud of. They just are.

I once read a denim designer admit that even with all the bells and whistles, with rhinestones, whiskering, stonewashing, and all, the maximum it takes to produce a pair of jeans is around $40. Why then, are you content with paying up to $200 just for a label? Forget it. Grab what your dad grabbed, and move on with your day.


Pro tip: Cut off the cheap paper logo on the back of your new pair. It’s no longer made of leather so it ages really quickly, and no one needs to learn what size your waist is just by staring at your butt label.