Buying quality jeans...

[cindy]

I want to buy some good quality jeans to stock my store (only (only women's jeans for now) What type/label do you recommend I get? Which do you recommend I DON'T get? I have a good idea of what jeans to order, but wonder if there are any I have forgotten. <p>Also, is there any Japanese denim for women you would recommend? I see it's pretty popular with men. If you could provide japanese denim sites, that would be great. THanks for all help.

[ten100switch]

iron heart makes a women's jean, though I can't see it being a very popular seller especially considering its weight

http://www.ironheart.jp/products/106.html

[horriblyjollyjinx]

http://www.kapital.jp/ makes nice women's jeans. You need to remember that what will sell the best isn't necessarily the best quality, but often the coolest brand, depends on what kind of shop yours is and where it is located though.

Most females probably aren't looking for expensive but well-built jeans in first hand.

[Chicken]

I recommend looking into r by 45rpm, Hysteric Glamour and Somet. They all make women's jeans popular in Japan and/or Europe from what I know. Unfortunately, most of these sites don't really represent their lines of clothing too well:

http://www.45rpm.jp/

http://www.hystericglamour.jp/en/

http://www.somet.co.jp/

[Whodinihimself]

Acne: http://62.181.215.102/media/ss06_lookbook_j.html

APC: http://www.apc.fr/us/en/femme_jeans.php

[bapelolol]

stay stockin' 7's and true religions

[greentea]

stay stockin' 7's and true religions

yeah youre right..

i dont know how much your women customers would be interested in the raw japanese denims or straight raw jeans at that. so expect for these type of jeans not to sell as much,but hey youll never know, might attract a following..

[red]

^^ agreed. women will folow what they see in magazines. well not all. but most. if jessica simpson isnt wearing it, it probably wont become popular. you certainly wont get a female following as big as the male following here on superfuture. i guess you can try. and if your successful, feel free to rub it in my face.

[keri]

I agree with the sevens and TR bit. But try to stock just the big and super T styles in TR, they use a higher quality denim to support the larger stitching and rivets.

You could stock the popular stuff and throw in some high quality stuff too, that way you have a good bringing in brand source, and then maybe you can make some converts.

[red]

you can use this as an advertisement. and dont worry. you wont have to pay me.

[Chicken]

red, it actually doesn't look half bad. is that a guy's lower half though?

[red]

no. its from the iron heart link above.

[sam113]

I'm not so sure, guys.

I sell more raw jeans to girls than I expected, out of a men's boutique.

There is a certain segment of the female population that aren't as swayed by advertising and what celebrities are wearing as most. They want whatever they don't or can't have. So when they come in with their boys and hear the whole raw denim story they want it. Bad.

I sell Thin Finn dry, Super-Slim Kim dry, the Sallys and the James from Crate and even a few RRDS to girls. I'm sure when I get APC this fall I'll sell a bunch of those to females as well.

Its still just a fraction of my total sales, but more than I would have guessed. Certainly not a number that can be ignored.

[spiveyt2]

^ maybe not a number that can be ignored but probably not a number that would keep the lights on. I'm sure you get the majority of your bottom line from the other stuff that SF folks may not hold in that high esteem (not that there's anything wrong with that). The point is that most likely she's going to need to stock stuff that may not be the best in quality but will put enough cash in the bank to keep the lights on. Of course, she can try to only have top quality stuff on the racks but she'll need one hell of a marketing campaign and some great web sales. Local traffic probably wouldn't cut it.

[will_i_am]

girls not washing their jeans for 6 months grosses me out.

of course they might use ryu's method of washing, so maybe it's not that bad.

[spiveyt2]

^Girls not washing their jeans after 6 months is really not that big of a deal. My wife's jeans don't smell any worse than mine.

[6MT]

stay stockin' 7's and true religions

agree, if you want to make money solely, but if you want to establish a rep as a cult store, pick something cult status like

[poly800rock]

girls not washing their jeans for 6 months grosses me out.

of course they might use ryu's method of washing, so maybe it's not that bad.

afraid the jeans will smell like vag insted of ass?

[sam113]

^ I personally prefer vag to fumunda cheese.

[sam113]

^ maybe not a number that can be ignored but probably not a number that would keep the lights on. I'm sure you get the majority of your bottom line from the other stuff that SF folks may not hold in that high esteem (not that there's anything wrong with that). The point is that most likely she's going to need to stock stuff that may not be the best in quality but will put enough cash in the bank to keep the lights on. Of course, she can try to only have top quality stuff on the racks but she'll need one hell of a marketing campaign and some great web sales. Local traffic probably wouldn't cut it.

True- those sales won't keep the lights on, but it certainly supplements my men's sales nicely. As far as my sales mix goes, our top seller is RRDS by a mile, followed by Lee Premium and ALD. So, it depends on the market you are in, definitely. We don't stock much that SFrs aren't down with, we leave that to the other guys.

[spiveyt2]

^ The sales info for the men's department is interesting, but the original thread topic involved women's jeans selection. Can you see a store being able to focus on women's dry denim and succeed? Granted, it would be (probably) the only one in the US to do so and could have a niche market. I guess the problem would be getting women to be aware of it and not be disgusted by the concept. There are like three women that post on the superdenim part of SF which doesn't bode well for women's interest in dry denim, though that could also be due to other factors of this board in general. Also, the dry denim market has always fascinated me because it is centered on buying less and wearing it for longer periods of time which, in the long run, means less purchases by the consumer (of course, this is not always the case) though at usually higher amounts spent per purchase. You guys that own stores see this as a problem or are there enough people out there who a) do not know dry denim, learn about it and want it (this, I assume, due to the small amount of people wearing dry, is a large market) or know about dry denim but buy more than they can break in (see the "no more denim" thread). What do you think?

[sam113]

^ It sounded to me like the original topic was a question about what quality jeans would SFrs recommend be added to the selection she already had in mind. I was not suggesting that she focus only on womens dry denim, I was merely responding to the posts stating that women don't buy enough dry denim to justify carrying it at all. This not coming from a mens department, mind you, but a men's boutique.

As far as your last question- the answer is both a): Most people don't know about raw denim but want it as soon as I educate them and

Even after learning about it, there will always be a segment of the population that will want as much of a product as they can get their hands on, even if having a lot of it runs contrary to why they get that product in the first place.