Levi's Vintage Clothing

[colgems1966]

i can buy raw wrangler 13mwz's literally 3 miles up the road for $19 or so. they look fairly good and authentic. my problem is i have a pair of 50's era blue bell wranglers that ruin modern ones for me. no comparison between the two. anyway on price, i feel the way i do because i know levis size and influence in the industry. i doubt they're paying anywhere near what the micro Japanese brands are for the denim, hardware or probably labor either. so i expect a better price because i intuitively sense their costs are lower. and they probably manufacture more product so better scale. that said i am pretty tight fisted on everything. i know what i like and what i'm willing to pay and if i can't get it i don't buy. i don't need anything so i feel no pressure to buy unless something extrodinary comes out.

[colgems1966]

^ on what killer b said. of the big 3 wrangler has strayed the least from their roots. you can buy raw/stiff as a board cowboy cut wranglers just like you could 50yrs ago. some of the details changed, most impotantly the denim (i never cared for the zig-zag wrandom denim used mid-60's to present nor the blueberry shade it fades to) but the heritage is unmistakeable. they're still making jeans for cowboys & laborers. they have made the least concessions to modernity and i applaud them for that. frankly if i didn't wear vintage or vintage repro jeans those are what i'd buy as they are the most authentic of the standard lines IMO.

[Paul T]

i doubt they're paying anywhere near what the micro Japanese brands are for the denim, hardware or probably labor either. so i expect a better price because i intuitively sense their costs are lower. and they probably manufacture more product so better scale.

Like you guys, I'm a bottom-feeder, I tend to pick up my pants at sales or second hand.... in fact, I'm not sure what I ever buy new, apart from my MacBooks.

But it's worth noting that LVC denim is made specifically for them, in small runs, by Cone. The quantities must be absolutely tiny. THey also buy in contract production alongside other rivals so I can't see that their costs are any lower for US-made LVC than for their rivals (there will be economies of scale on the Turkish stuff, as the plant produces a lot of items for LS&Co.)

ROy - those pants look great! Really pleased they've worked out. I think they look pretty timeless, altho the lens flare definitely reminds me of 1970s porno shoots.

(I am feeling the lack of some chino fits.)

[Maynard Friedman]

Roy6 looks great in those, he has the look of a ballroom dancer about him.

[Guest rusholmeruffian]

Agreed, Roy you look like you could do a mean tango in that outfit.

[Maynard Friedman]

Like you guys, I'm a bottom-feeder

Is that the same as a felcher?!

[jewellben]

Thanks everyone but I understand what you're saying and that equates to what I've always believed. This is the first time I've heard the story about LVC being manufactured in Eastern Europe so I thought I'd recount it here. It may just be the spin that the manager was given. Incidentally, the Three Threads is owned by Edwin. He did also infer that the price hike had significantly reduced the sales of full-price LVC at his shop.

I think the worrying thing about this is the significantly reduced sales, the number of stores stocking "raw" lvc IMO seams to be shrinking. I spoke to ran in Manchester about this last year and it's the reason they stopped stocking. As a store owner are they making a loss selling lvc in the sales at 40% off a la llcc? If this is the case are they likely to take new season stock.

Most stores be it uk, USA or Europe appear to have very similar pricing, is this imposed on them by lvc? yet cultizm tend to sell £60 cheaper. I can remember Asda or tesco in the uk selling 501 at a significant make down to other stores which made the national press as levis felt the discounted price impacted their brand value as premium Jean. Is there are price fix imposed on lvc too??

[Maynard Friedman]

I think the worrying thing about this is the significantly reduced sales, the number of stores stocking "raw" lvc IMO seams to be shrinking. I spoke to ran in Manchester about this last year and it's the reason they stopped stocking. As a store owner are they making a loss selling lvc in the sales at 40% off a la llcc? If this is the case are they likely to take new season stock.

Most stores be it uk, USA or Europe appear to have very similar pricing, is this imposed on them by lvc? yet cultizm tend to sell £60 cheaper. I can remember Asda or tesco in the uk selling 501 at a significant make down to other stores which made the national press as levis felt the discounted price impacted their brand value as premium Jean. Is there are price fix imposed on lvc too??

From the staff at various shops whom I've spoken with, a fixed price of £215 dictated by LVC for raw denim appears to be the case.

[rayw44]

partly snobbery, and partly as jap denim is need as more of an artisan-made product. seems to me if you're buying japanese, you've even got a chance of knowing the name of the person who sewed your jeans together - not so with LVC.

I don't think it's the "artisan quality" of Japanese brands. Look at what happened when Roy, literally a one man operation whom we all "know" on a first name basis with possibly the highest quality product I have ever laid my hands on, moved his wares to Self Edge and the price increased.

Almost every jean that Self Edge sells is more expensive than Roy's yet no brand could possibly have more of an "artisan" pedigree than Roy (you can only match that level, not surpass). But for some reason, the Roy thread was filled with complaints about the price hike. Obviously price hikes suck for us, but why the complaints only when it happens on US based brands?

[killer b]

people moan when prices go up. it's not just a jeans thing.

[mikecch]

Almost every jean that Self Edge sells is more expensive than Roy's yet no brand could possibly have more of an "artisan" pedigree than Roy (you can only match that level, not surpass). But for some reason, the Roy thread was filled with complaints about the price hike. Obviously price hikes suck for us, but why the complaints only when it happens on US based brands?

Good point you raised there rayw44!

My personal take on this matter:

I guess the fiasco with ROY was because the price went from $170 MTO shipped international (with customer service and nice personal notes from Mr. Slaper) to $275 off-the-rack shipped international, in the span of a few months of ROY being widely known on the forums.

Yes, I do think Roy couldn't have lasted long under the initial circumstances (and good on him for getting his project out there!), but as a consumer it still came as a wee bit of a shock.

With the Japanese brands, I think it's partly because they don't increase the pricing very often (check out the sc40301, still the same as 2005, or earlier, pricing), and when they do it's more like a 10% increase every few years. Having a look at brands like McCoy, SDA, Samurai, etc - the pricing has remained fairly consistent these few years.

Plus, being a predominantly "Western" based forum, we really don't have much of an idea of the manufacturing, expenses, logistics, etc in the "Holy Land" of denim.

These Japanese brands face pretty stiff competition from each other in a fairly niche market, and they don't play around with their pricing on a whim - once their fan base shifts, they can get 'disappeared' fairly easily.

Further, we have choices when it comes to Japanese repro...

Don't like the 2010 TFH pricing increase? We always have Warehouse, Fullcount, etc, etc , etc and countless mini house-brands.

Want American repro? Sorry, only LVC (unless you want to pay extra $ for Rising Sun)

Don't like the price hike? Too bad, just eat it...and hence we moan

[ThomasK]

Just want to throw in my 2 cents: I think around 250 USD is a reasonable price for LVC. Yes, they have problems but there are very few brands with a range of products that big. As someone said earlier, you have go give them credit for doing things that aren't available everywhere. In the "jeans of the old west..."-thread, there are a few pages about a beatiful repro costing 500 Dollars. It's probably worth it as it was produced in a small run and was nicely constructed with a lot attention to detail. Also theres RRL/Diesel etc that cost more than a raw LVC. And in the end I really like Levis and think it is great that we have the opportunity to buy a raw product that is quite similar to the ones that you probably saw everywhere decades ago.

[setterman]

I don't think it's the "artisan quality" of Japanese brands. Look at what happened when Roy, literally a one man operation whom we all "know" on a first name basis with possibly the highest quality product I have ever laid my hands on, moved his wares to Self Edge and the price increased.

Almost every jean that Self Edge sells is more expensive than Roy's yet no brand could possibly have more of an "artisan" pedigree than Roy (you can only match that level, not surpass). But for some reason, the Roy thread was filled with complaints about the price hike. Obviously price hikes suck for us, but why the complaints only when it happens on US based brands?

I think the "artisan quality" of the major Japanese brands is waaay over hyped. The world wide demand for brands like Sugar Cane, Warehouse, Samurai, Flat Head, Momotaro, etc. is such that they're produced in a factory, just like LVC. This notion that one highly skilled craftsman sat there and cut, sewed, pressed and rivet your pair of jeans from start to finish is a false one. They were made in a plant, with the process broken down into at least a partial assembly line process.

Labor costs? I won't begin to guess what labor costs are in the Japan. But I've got a good idea what they are in the US. That USA labor is more than likely immigrant labor, and making $13 (or less) an hour.

Back to my original question, why do people complain so much about LVC's price and price increases vs Japanese brands? There can be many different reasons, but I think there's two major ones. First, even if you weren't into LVC six or seven years ago, through here you've heard of the price increasing, and going from $170 to $250 in five years. That's a 47% increase! (vs a 20 to 25% increase in some Japanese brands) If that doesn't make you sit up and say "Hey, wait a minute!", what's going to?

Second (and I think it's the 800 pound gorilla in the room), I feel there's a lot of guys that love the brand (myself included) but secretly feel this way: LVC is at times, especially in it's raw state, underwhelming. (And even once washed, they're sorta "blah" until they've had some serious wear put into them) They don't "feel" like a $250 garment. And that's not not to say that Japanese jeans feel like a $300 garment! (IMO, all premium denim is wildly over hyped and priced) But when in your hands you get the impression what one should cost more than the other.

There's guys that love the nostalgia of LVC, over look the price and go ahead and make the purchase. They may be very happy with the purchase but in the back of their mind there's that little voice saying "You got taken for a pair of jeans". And when they see that price go up the voice says "Not only did you get taken on that last pair, now they're trying to fuck you if you want to buy another pair!".

Just my thoughts on the matter. Hope no one tries to pick a fight, and tries to defend "their brand" because I consider it mine too. I'd like to see some reasoned thoughts and responses on the matter.

[rayw44]

Good point you raised there rayw44!

My personal take on this matter:

I guess the fiasco with ROY was because the price went from $170 MTO shipped international (with customer service and nice personal notes from Mr. Slaper) to $275 off-the-rack shipped international, in the span of a few months of ROY being widely known on the forums.

Yes, I do think Roy couldn't have lasted long under the initial circumstances (and good on him for getting his project out there!), but as a consumer it still came as a wee bit of a shock.

Very true, Roy basically had to change, and the change in service is much different from just the price change we are seeing here. And good point about the Japanese prices rising gradually. I am also starting to think that part of the problem for LVC is that we can actually see the disparity in price points within this company. We see the stf 501s that have dropped in quality but raised in price.

And like Paul said, a lot of us are bargain hunters at heart. I remember the first premium denim I stumbled across around 04-05 was the LVC section on Levis website, and I remember thinking that the raw 47s were just what I wanted, but there was no way I was paying $175 for them. I could probably talk about this for way too long, so I won't derail this thread any furher.

[grooveholmes]

Historical authenticity has been discussed endlessly here, and I agree that most of us are under the impression that repro-jeans are not supposed to feel like a $250 garment anyway. So I'm not sure where we're going here-- that both American and Japanese premium brands are overhyped and overpriced is the conclusion I'm reaching. It's just that there's a market, and people are willing to pay a premium for nostalgia. LVC is aware of this and probably used the "cotton supply" issue as means to get a little more gravy from consumers. I haven't studied the regular Levi's line to see what sort of price increase has occurred in the past 5 years, but I'm sure it's not proportional.

I get taken by oil companies every week (though i can stretch it out to 2 if I ride my bicycle), as most of us do, because it's become a "necessity". Jeans are expendable income, so I don't have to buy a $250 pair of jeans if I don't want to. People will pay whatever they feel is appropriate. I'll complain along with everyone else, but at the end of the day, I'm still more of a bottom-feeder, anyway, so I'll just wait for a deal to come my way.

[Rivet Head]

Fantastic Roy6! Must spread.....burn baby burn, disco inferno....jk!

[setterman]

Historical authenticity has been discussed endlessly here, and I agree that most of us are under the impression that repro-jeans are not supposed to feel like a $250 garment anyway. So I'm not sure where we're going here-- that both American and Japanese premium brands are overhyped and overpriced is the conclusion I'm reaching. It's just that there's a market, and people are willing to pay a premium for nostalgia. LVC is aware of this and probably used the "cotton supply" issue as means to get a little more gravy from consumers. I haven't studied the regular Levi's line to see what sort of price increase has occurred in the past 5 years, but I'm sure it's not proportional.

I get taken by oil companies every week (though i can stretch it out to 2 if I ride my bicycle), as most of us do, because it's become a "necessity". Jeans are expendable income, so I don't have to buy a $250 pair of jeans if I don't want to. People will pay whatever they feel is appropriate. I'll complain along with everyone else, but at the end of the day, I'm still more of a bottom-feeder, anyway, so I'll just wait for a deal to come my way.

I had the same thought, that a reproduction of a $5 jean, shouldn't really feel like a $250 jean. You're copying a cheap mass produced item, so your reproduction isn't going to feel like a luxury item. But, using my Warehouse 1001XX as an example, there's something about them that when I touch them it's like "yeah, I understand why they cost more." That's not there with any of my LVC items. Maybe it's wrong that I expect it to be there?

You're right, pay what we feel is appropriate. And with LVC current price level, I'm going back and forth in my head about what I'm willing to pay.

[roy6]

I don't know that premium denim, US or Japanese, is over-priced so much as all of us in the west have gotten used to under-priced merchandise made possible by huge corporations and out-sourced, cheap labor.

I remember a huge debate here when the price hikes first started with LVC. I did some math and determined that with appropriate (I thought) costs of living increases the original duck jumper in 1904 cost a typical American then roughly the same percentage of their income that a new LVC duck jumper cost a modern American. The notable thing is that the LVC product is considered a high-end product, where the original jumper was actual work-wear. When I compared the cost of a new Carhart jacket to a comparable LVC jacket, of course it's only a fraction of the cost. The point is the comparable cost of clothing has plumeted in the last century, yet still we complain and demand cheaper.

With the Roy increase there was a great shock, but he still sells very well, and is currently completely sold out at Self Edge, unless he just recently restocked them.

The big difference between those two cases is that Roy's quality is extremely high and consistent, whereas LVCs quality is variable, some of their detailing/hardware is shoddy, their sizing is unreliable, and their customer service and response is non-existent.

Makes it harder and harder to justify spending the money on their merchandise when the quality remains iffy (on their denim sizing & hardware) or actually decreases as it seems to have, with their standard Ts, sweats, henleys & larger batches of shirts.

[Guest rusholmeruffian]

Japanese repros and some LVC are value for money compared with the prices charged for shitty jeans with this months designer name on them.

Furthermore, I reckon you would struggle to buy a bog-standard pair of 501's in Manchester for under £75. You are looking at £100 plus for Diesel, Prada, etc. These are jeans churned out in sweatshops in some far flung corner of the world.

Compared to this, the £170 or so I pay for Warehouse shipped from Japan is reasonable. If you shop around now you can get raw USA made LVC for around £100 online.

However, the prices being asked in some places, espec. for Turkish LVC is ridiculous. Especially when I know that some retailers struggle to shift the stuff.

I remember Geese, easily the hippest shop in town ( James now owns Ran) , getting the first run of LVC around 1999. This was a shop with very clued-up clientele which hardly sold any. They ended up almost giving it away because it was just considered by customers to be "levi's" and not worth the extra. I reckon this was the reason why tons and tons of valencia st. lvc ended up in TK Maxx.

For this reason I find LVCs marketing strategy extremely weird. If LVC wasn't working in the West outside Japan they should have thought of something else.

Instead they abandoned their USP (Valencia St) and now are pricing themselves out of their target demographic ( which isn't us lot).

[josh mullen]

I haven't any problem paying $225-250 for a pair of LVC. In fact, I felt -- as I'm sure many of you did -- that a pair of jeans the likes of LVC for $175 (what we were paying for a pair from Cultizm as of a few years ago) was a steal. I was okay with that first price hike several months back, but would probably have to stay away if things go any higher. As others have said, if I'm going to be paying $300+, I'd probably rather go with Warehouse or Ooe.

[kimhwan92]

We are buying their brand's name instead of the quality of their product. Inevitable, must I say? Quantity over quality...?

[Paul T]

Just to cheer you all up, check out this graph (found by Roy Slaper):

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=cotton&months=60

[robbie]

I don't know that premium denim, US or Japanese, is over-priced so much as all of us in the west have gotten used to under-priced merchandise made possible by huge corporations and out-sourced, cheap labor.

This mindset manifests itself all over. I can't tell you how many people offered me 10$ to mow their grass when I was still working landscaping. They'd say 'ohh it's a small yard, it'll only take you 15 minutes.

As a whole I think we're unwilling to pay what things are worth. Some of that is mark up, but most of it is like you've said we don't value quality as much as we value a bargain.

[setterman]

Just to cheer you all up, check out this graph (found by Roy Slaper):

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=cotton&months=60

Wow! That's a 300+% increase between June 2006 and March 2011! I heard on the news a month of two ago that cotton prices were high. I recall them mentioning that consumers could expect to pay more. Examples were paying four or five dollars more for a three pack of white t-shirts, and $12 more for a pair of Levis.

[ThomasK]

Do you think there could still be a remaining core product assortment like a RAW 47/55 even if LVC itself would be discontinued?

[Shorty Long]

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/17/cotton-company-run-by-eli-whitney-family-goes-bust/

[Maynard Friedman]

It was reported in the press about a year ago how cotton prices had doubled and this could potentially signal the end of cheap throwaway fashion from the likes of Primark, etc as these price increases were passed onto the consumer. Don't think that's happened yet though I wish it would.

[Rivet Head]

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/09/17/cotton-company-run-by-eli-whitney-family-goes-bust/

You can blame Wal Mart as the main perpetrator of demanding cheaper and cheaper prices year after year. What a disgusting time we live in....

[Happy Hooligan]

I seem to remember another time in America's past when we were concerned with the price of Cotton....

[Maynard Friedman]

On a brighter note for all UK/London based LVC fans, Hideout at 293 Portobello Rd has a decent range of LVC for £120. They are older stock but include (iirc) pre-1900s, 1901, 1915, 1927, 1944, 1947, 1955 and 1966 - all in a lucky dip of sizes.

I bought the last pair of 1937s (2007 season), which I'd been after for a while

Tony the owner is a real character and top bloke. Unfortunately for those from further afield, this is a bricks and mortar shop only, with no online presence.

EDIT: Meant to add that these are nearly all raw but there are 1 or 2 washed pairs knocking about in there.