As the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
I started wearing Levi’s 501 jeans back in the 80s. They were the most comfortable jeans I ever wore so I kept wearing them. In fact, with a few exceptions, I’ve worn nothing but Levi’s 501s for almost 30 years. However, the quality of the product has taken a nose-dive over the past few years. Sadly, it’s time to move on.
The problem is, after about 6 months of wear, a pair of Levi’s 501s will develop a hole on the crotch area. I first noticed this a couple of years back and I chalked it up to the jeans being “worn out” so I went out and bought a couple more. Oddly enough, after about 9 – 12 mos. of wear, the same holes started appearing. Still loyal to my brand, I didn’t think much of it, and I bought more Levi’s. Now, about 6 mos. later, even the newest jeans are starting to develop holes in the crotch. WTF?
I was curious to see how common a problem this is. A quick Yahoo! search of “levis 501 coming apart at the crotch” yielded multiple results. Apparently, this is a common problem with the Levi’s brand, and it’s not just the 501s. Levi’s even employs an “online firefighter” named Rosie who encourages people to call the company and they will gladly replace the jeans if we agree to send them in. That would be fine except for 2 things: 1. what would I wear in the mean time? ALL of my jeans have this hole now. And 2. why would I bother to trade in my jeans for new jeans that will also fail in about 6 mos.? Had mine been an isolated incident, maybe a victim of a “bad batch” of jeans that slipped by the “inspector”, I’d do it. But this is obviously not the case. After all, I bought my jeans at different times, from different stores, and they have all failed – every single pair. And judging by the other people I found in my search results with the same problem, Levi Strauss & Co. is well aware of the problem but Rosie has not mentioned anything that they’re doing to change it.
I was not happy with Levi Stauss & Co. when they closed their American factories and moved them to Mexico but I kept buying their product. But now that the quality is gone, Levi’s seems to be making even more money by taking advantage of me, the consumer. The unspoken business plan seems to be this: make a product that fails early in it’s expected life and the consumer will come back for more.
There’s another saying I live by: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Bye bye, Levi’s. Hello, Wrangler? I’ll certainly give them a try. I gotta wear SOMETHING.