I measured hundreds of Levi's jeans and compared how every pair fits
tryfitfirst.com
tryfitfirst.com
However I’d also like to point out that with large companies like Levi’s there are often fit discrepancies as large as an inch between ‘identical’ items of the same style, size, color, etc. This is why I would advise most people to buy clothes in a retail shop if at all possible.
This comes down to two things.
1. Making clothes at such large scale and at a low cost means there are many corners cut in terms of precision, in both cutting and sewing. See this short video [1] to get an idea of how this process works.
2. Levi’s and other large companies don’t own their production. Instead they contract (and then subcontract) to large numbers of both ‘conventional’ factories and piece-work workshops often as small as just some machines in someone’s living room. These companies make such large orders that no single factory could ever cover them, so batches of ‘identical’ products are sourced from a large number of producers, even multiple countries at times. Of course there are SLAs about the spec that must be met for each garment but the reality is that it diverges enormously.
On the subject of manufacturing/fit discrepancies, it might be interesting for me to write a follow-up piece on my measuring process and what I learned about garment manufacturing from measuring. Here's a little preview of my process and of what I learned about Levi's specifically.
The measurements that I used to write the article are my best estimate for the intended jean specs, rather than an average across measurements taken from multiple jeans in the same size or from a sample of one jean per line. What I did was measure jeans in multiple sizes and colorways from each line. The goal was to get an idea for what Levi's grading rules are (how each pant measurement, like the thighs, changed from size-to-size), as well as how often there were deviations from the grading rules (due to manufacturing tolerance) and if there are any noticeable variations in measurements by colorway or manufacturing location.
Compared to most other brands, Levi's rarely had egregious manufacturing problems. That is, every measurement I took was within a 1" margin of error from the measurement specs I tried to reverse engineer. Moreover, out of the eight measurements I took per pant, I found that on average only one of those measurements was off-spec and even then on average it was never off by more than 1". On the other hand, brands like Goodfellow & Co from Target were way worse (I basically had to give up on some of the pant lines).
The most surprising thing I found is that Levi's does not seem to intentionally change their measurements color-by-color (so dark blue jeans have the same intended measurements as light ones). This might be an even bigger issue for perceived garment fit than having a 1" manufacturing tolerance. Dyes affect how people perceive fit because the dying process affects the feel of the garment, so on average darker clothes feel lighter than lighter clothes made from the same materials with the same measurements.
After doing all this measuring, my big takeaway about the challenges with clothing fit is that it's fundamentally a communication problem, not precision problem. Take manufacturing tolerance, for example. An inch off in some places can be a real problem, like for the waistband of jeans, but for the most part it's not too much of an issue. For example, the difference between every measurement on the leg of the Levi's Skinny and Slim jeans is 1.75". An inch difference in one part of the leg won't completely transform the fit. The real problem with how apparel is sold is that all these details, like manufacturing tolerance, are opaque and swept under the rug. If consumers better information about things like fit, they could at least more confidently make a purchase (or choose not to make one).
Anyway, that's my rant! I'll probably write a follow-up that more coherently pieces some of those points together :-)
I wonder if you'd be willing to open source your measurements. As a stats nerd I'd love to build some models with that data, just for fun.
I didn't even think about adding something on available sizes (which fit numbers come in short/long lengths or smaller/bigger waists). I should add that!
In the meantime, I checked to see which Levi's I've measured do come in length 36 for a size 32, and there are a handful of them: * Levi's 505 Regular Fit * Levi's 514 Straight Fit * Levi's 527 Boot Cut Fit * Levi's 541 Athletic Fit Unfortunately there isn't too much variety, given that the 501's are also a regular seat/straight leg, but the 505/514's should fit a bit different and come in 32x36, so they might be worth a try!