Are Levi's from Amazon different from Levi's from Levi's?

Ha, glad to know I'm not not alone doing that re: country of origin.

I only wear Oxfords and casual button down shirts, and found that I only ever like the ones made in Bangladesh because of fit and material. I could talk your ear off for 20 minutes about how clothes from X feel cheap, clothes from Y have nice materials but don't fit right, etc.

I just checked my closet, and every single shirt I regularly wear across three brands is made in Bangladesh!

It's not really the style anymore (and they were wildly expensive), but some of the best jeans I've had were True Religions. I could go to the store, try on a ton of pairs, and then get the length tailored. I used to power lift, and at the time, finding jeans that had 32" waist while still being bigger in the butt/thighs was a huge challenge. Only TR seemed to have them.

I once took a pair of jeans back to Gap (UK) because they didn't fit. After trying on pairs for fifteen minutes I ended up on a pair that fitted perfectly, but which were the exact same size, style and fit. Weirdest experience exchanging an item for the exact same item.

I'm surprised they even get as good of results as they do with those cutting methods. Aligning the direction of the threads (called the grainline) before cutting is extremely important. To the point that the approach they are taking almost seems like making a knowingly defective product.

Physical products are HARD. Programmers take for granted our digital assembly line, where it's possible to generate millions of byte-identical products with ease. As a software "engineer" I do not envy real engineers one bit.

Feels like there's similarity to CPU and GPU binning.

Make a bunch of them with the same process then bin them based on the variability.

Sure, start with 501s in Levi's LVC line. You'll get better quality, selvedge denim and they'll be based on 501s from different eras (so slimmer legs, wider hem, etc etc). If you're lucky you can find some with Japanese or Cone Mills (USA) denim. LVC are often in the sale, shop around.

Then look at the Japanese brands. Most of them are reproducing 501s from various eras. FWIW, I like TCB (https://tcbjeans.myshopify.com/) - the price/value ratio is superb, the quality is better than LVC and retail is cheaper. Their 40s and 50s jeans are both brilliant and they age amazingly.

Hope that helps!

Last time I bought jeans I accidentally got the 501s because I didn't realize they were button fly. I thought I was going to return them but I ended up giving them a shot and now I love them. They're way less trouble to do up than I was expecting. (And because you work from the bottom up, I've never forgotten to close my fly... something that I managed far too often with zip flys)

The Unbranded UB301 is probably a good place to start.

Uniqlo's selvedge jeans I've found are pretty good, although not button fly.

I'm skeptical of this. Used sales are a thing, plus I've gotten "new" products that had definitely been previously opened. Throwing away returned products seems to go against the ethos of squeezing every drop of profit out of things.

This is not true. You can even see in tons of product listings where you can buy from "Amazon Resale". The prices are cheaper because they were returned from customers and are missing packaging, tags, etc.

Amazon absolutely resells returned items when possible. And if it's not through Amazon Resale, it's by reselling them in bulk lots to people who then make money listing the items on eBay.

Yes some of the absolute cheapest stuff gets tossed because it's not profitable to resell. But in many cases you're not even asked to return -- just keep it and get refunded. (As long as you don't have a history of abusing that.)

Levi's are absolutely going to be resold. Amazon is a business. They're not going to eat a loss when they don't have to.

It's still bad journalism. Given the inherent nature of variances in garment manufacturing, individual fitment, and item cost, they should've at least done a sample size of 3.

Please also don't use The Wirecutter as an example of good journalism. It's the worst of a bad lot of Consumer Reports clones with all the disincentives of rapid-fire constant publication and ad-driven revenue. It was bad prior to the NYT acquisition, but it's "bottom of the barrel" atm.

Much akin to CNBC for securities, it's now just a source of noise and, occasionally, even negative signal.

Good point that reviews tend to be n=1. But reviewing a car is different than doing investigative journalism on a "tip" about jeans bought on Amazon, and dismissing it.

I don't think anyone is alleging that BMW is cutting corners on materials shipped to only some dealers for a given market.

Nor is anyone alleging that there's counterfeit Ferraris constantly being snuck onto dealer lots.

What happened here looks closer to lowbrow propaganda or PR, than journalism.

And I suspect that any kids reading pieces like this -- rather than learning from good example -- are instead being confused about journalism, science, and critical thinking.

At the end of the day, most modern clothing isn't made in brand factories.

It's subcontracted out to tons of shop, who then subcontract their orders out to even more shops.

Unsurprising that given such a system product varies.

They have been notorious for this for generations, to the point where it's sort of surprising to see it mentioned explicitly. Obvs this isn't a fashion forum and not everyone knows, but probably most people who want a specific pair of levis does know.

Do you wear them anyway, or return or tailor them or what?

Different factories in different countries on the tags which seems like a reasonable explanation.

For one good example, look at the Soundcore Boom 2 "SE" -- the "SE" is specific to Walmart, and has some features cut.

Back to denim, Walmart caries "Levi's Signature" -- those are lower cost (and lower quality) versions of the normal lines.

They have to because Walmart drives them so hard on price.

You have to assume that anything you buy on amazon that is shipped from one of their warehouses is counterfeit, regardless of any effort you put in to avoid it. That doesn't stop me from buying things there, but it does stop me from buying certain things from there.

Not op, but operating the same way.

The competition might be cheaper than the manufacturer.

Outlet clothes are often made specifically for outlets, and are generally lower quality. I wouldn't go to the Levi's outlet and hope to get the good stuff.

I remember being very confused on this when going to an outlet store after college. They were basically rebranded malls, at that point. Not at all what I was expecting from high school days going to outlets.

The outlet stores often have small text on price tags saying that the items may never have been sold at their "original" price. It's a convoluted way of saying that the sale discounts are imaginary.

From Nordstrom Rack's web site:

This comparable value and corresponding percentage are based on what the item, or similar item, was originally offered for by Nordstrom or elsewhere in the market, which may have been reported to us by the manufacturer.

I believe it. My wife shops at Coach and their outlet stores are much better than their main stores. The store footprint is at least double, which means they also carry more product. The outlet has more men's products as well. Plus the staff is generally more grounded.

I had a purse of hers sent back for reconditioning and the regular store didn't seem to notice that it was originally an outlet product (granted, it was like 8 years old at that point).

Granted, not every retailer is like that. GAP brands definitely sell inferior products at their outlet stores. But I don't notice a difference in quality for Levi's stuff at their outlet stores vs department stores.

I think outlet malls are generally seen by consumers as "malls that focus largely on clothing". The only regular malls that have survived in my area are maybe 30% clothing, with the rest being the huge Apple store, restaurants, cafes, jewelry, car showrooms (?), LEGO, overpriced home goods, etc. While the outlet mall remains like 80% clothing.

To be fulfilled by Amazon it has to go to Amazon's warehouse where they don't differentiate sellers. If seller A sends in "widget Z" and seller B sends in counterfeit "widget Z", Amazon puts them both in a box for widget Z and pulls from it randomly.

Even when I'm ordering from what looks like an official brand store? eg https://www.amazon.com/stores/GOLDTOE/page/9736A557-DAD9-4EB...

Yeah, I guess that doesn't mean anything but marketing, it still all comes from the same place.

The OP article doesn't discuss this, but it seems to me a likely explanation for someone getting crap levi's ordered on amazon?

Mexican coke made for the US market is made with cane sugar, not corn syrup.

Sucrose in cane sugar decomposes to glucose and fructose via hydrolysis. With an acidic bottle of coke, a week after bottling nearly all of it is converted. The ratio of glucose and fructose is 50/50 from sucrose, with high fructose corn syrup it's a 55/42 ratio.

It dose not prove or disprove that assertion.