Japanese denim and Levi...what do you think...HYPE or FACT

[Neilfuji]

Hi,

There's been a lot of talk about the Levi/Japanese denim "lawsuits'

I was wondering if it made any of you buy quicker and if so what did you buy and did you feel the price or the product or service was hyped because of the 'lawsuits' ?

did you feel the price you paid was level with the Japanese market or over played

was there any unfair trading or wrong doing over the matter

just asking

Neil

[ericdw]

i don't think the prices changed at all

[Neilfuji]

did you feel the prices were hyped anyway

how much did you pay and where did you buy from?

[GoodHustle]

I purchased Studio D'Artisan SD-103 from BiG for $245 ($260 shipped). I was planning on purchasing them later this year (in the summer) but I felt like I had to buy now because I wanted the arcuates, leather patch and tags in tact. $245 was the price that BiG set when they first went online last summer so the lawsuit didn't jack up the price. I think both Self Edge and BiG kept their prices the same, and didn't try to take advantage of the situation even though they probably could have.

[khaltire]

I picked up a pair of SD-101 for $about 230 CDN (210 US) deadstock and raw... I wanted the arcuates and patch. I think Im gonna pick up some SD-001 as well cause I like the fit of these jeans and I want the LHT in the fit.. then I dont have to worry about new jeans for a while

[denimdestroyedmylife]

i did notice eBay listings for SDAs or SCs that hyped up the fact that THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE

and the price was higher than i'd pay

but eBay is like that and WE KNOW THIS

[Superstar]

got some sd-103's from 2000dB.... 245$ (incl. shipping)... the lawsuit definetly made me speed up my buy as i didnt have any jap denim with arcuates, tabs or leather patches.. but now i do...

[viv1984viv]

certainly made me panic buy when I saw a good offer from the UK on supermarket.

I cant wait to see the new designs, knowing my weakness ill probably find them just as desirable.

[machineo]

i certainly put my goals of sorahiko/eternals on the side and have been eyeing the brands in question. i noticed more japanese denims on the market the last few weeks. i wonder if the sc 1945 lees are remodeling too.

[tweeds]

i wanted to, but i decided to pause for a moment and watch for further happenings...when the SD-103s i was looking at weren't being taken off rakuten in a hurry i decided that a panic buy was not immediately in order.

[Dex_star]

i panicked (sp?)... bought two pairs.. sold one for less than i paid... thinking of selling the other... neither fit.. bought just in desperation

any one want some oni blues?

[Tarmac]

lol oni blue what size?

I bought one pair of lawsuit denim, same price as it always was at Self Edge, however the tag was sliced off, which I didnt notice till I got home. Believe it or not the tag was a tragic loss to me. Honestly I think the tagless ones should have been discounted. But oh well, I wanna support SE so its cool. Other than that, there is no way Im gonna spend near 1k on jeans in one month, so I didnt buy anything else, even though I want some Oni blues eventually.

[Dex_star]

sz.32

just ordered some black plum sda's yesterday to replace my sold black sammies

hopefully nothing happens

[diewhitegirls]

Overhyped? Dear G-d, yes. Overblown, dramatic, whiney, crochety stupidity was what ensued. I doubt the prices were inflated a dime, but there are people on here that use every miniscule bit of information to sling their product and this was certainly the case in this scenario. Does it really matter? No, but goodness it's annoying.

All in all, no one will care in a month. The end.

[thelion1856]

i bought 4 pairs:

samurai VX5000BK

oni blues

flat heads

samurai VX3000

each were around $300. i dont feel it was over hyped. that was the same price before it all went down and not over priced at all. the quality is 10/10.

[Neilfuji]

question is.....

would you have got the 4 pairs if the 'lawsuits' did not happen? and did the fact that they did and the 'closeness' of the stores to the labels and the 'lawsuits' make you buy more?

the simple fact is that most of the jeans are still out there with trademarked detail, in fact are open to wholesale for next season, so was you denim rush due to the idea you may be beating the evil empire sorry Levi empire in a race to complete or would you have done it any way?

Neil

[Neilfuji]

Overhyped? Dear G-d, yes. Overblown, dramatic, whiney, crochety stupidity was what ensued. I doubt the prices were inflated a dime, but there are people on here that use every miniscule bit of information to sling their product and this was certainly the case in this scenario. Does it really matter? No, but goodness it's annoying.

All in all, no one will care in a month. The end.

but in that month have you spent money on something that you would have enjoyed more if spent more time over the purchase and who made you do it!!!!!!

[sneakeraddict]

Good topic. (Yes, I bought a pair of Samurais, all correct details intact straight from Japan at normal price)

But to be honest I'm a bit annoyed at how the whole scenario.

First we were told:

"No more red tabs, arcs to be made after a certain date.

All brands featuring these symbols will be removed from shelves WORLDWIDE, not just America on Jan the XX.. Parcels containing these 'infringing' items will be rigourously checked by Japanese customs - they will NOT be allowed to arrive in UK/US no matter what service you try."

Many of us said, "Hmmm... I'll believe it when I see it. Probably gonna affect export models only".

We were then told again, "no all samurais etc worldwide will be removed from shelves tomorrow, or retailers face prosecution"

This made many people order Samurais, SDs etc from Japan before the 'final' date without any problems at all.

Personally, I didnt have the money to buy straight away, so as an 'experiment', I tried to order my jeans way after the 'deadline'. I succeeded.

The jeans arrived fully intact without any problems and without the seller even mentioning the apparent illegality of this.

Now, I see in another thread apparently "jeans with existing tabs/arcs will continue to be sold until they run out, and then a new design will come".

Errr... I thought all remaining red tab jeans had to be destroyed / withdrawn from January xx ??

This is a HUGE turnaround from what we were first told as 100% accurate.

Basically I think Kiya has been lied to by Levis - looks like they didnt have a fucking leg to stand on, otherwise why is EVERY major Rakuten store still selling red tabs past this apparent worldwide 'deadline' ?

(just to make clear, I am not criticisng Kiya at all, but I strongly believe a lot of the info he gave us - directly from Levis - was not at all accurate or honest, as has been since proven)

[diewhitegirls]

but in that month have you spent money on something that you would have enjoyed more if spent more time over the purchase and who made you do it!!!!!!

Haven't bought anything that I otherwise wouldn't have. Haven't bought any jeans other than Ande's and if someone is going after him for his thumbs, well...I guess I bought in.

[Neilfuji]

Hey sneakeraddict

First off, due to a few PM I’ve had too, this is not in anyway and ‘attack’ on other members of SF

I was just asking a simple question to gauge the effect of the ‘lawsuits’ on the denim buyers and the whole feeling about it and any other issues, this kind of think can shake up the confidence in the product and the makers more than the stores and the consumer

I’ve worked with ‘niche’ denim for over 20 years and Japanese denim companies for the last ten, Levi’s have done this before many, many times, normally settle out of court and it’s a lot of sabre rattling to scare the little guy..

I, too, posted on Kiya thread trying to place it in context of the history of denim and Levi’s use of the US legal system to repress others, having work (as a freelance) at Levis, I’ve seen there processes up close and they do have a right to protect there trademarks, although even they would be careful on there claims as the ‘inventors’ of denim and jeans….in another thread maybe

Information has been released without fully seeing what would happen, and the effect it would have on the end users, most if not all the products that are banned are still on the shelves in Japan (just returned from Kyoto/Tokyo/Osaka).

Again just asking and love to hear your options this

[sneakeraddict]

Hi Neil,

Yeah, just to clarify again, it might look like I'm attacking Kiya's posts, and I just want to stress I'm not at all. (The guy's done great things for those who want to buy JPN denim easily)

... BUT... the info he passed on from Levis was clearly not 100% accurate.

I still think, as I originally said, this is basically Levis huffing and puffing, without any real intent behind its words, and is more likely just saying 'stop exporting red-tabs' to US and UK. I think you're right to say this was basically intimidation by Levis on our beloved J-brands.

Interestingly the only stores who have 'toed the line' on this have been the two American stockists of JPN brands, probably the only places Levis could ever enforce the destroy / removal policy it aggressively demanded... I would be extremely surprised if Levis ever managed to get Bears etc to remove red-tabs and arcs in the way BiG and Selfedge had to do.

But returning to your original question, yes it made me 'panic buy' some Samurais, 'just in case'. I had been intending to buy a pair 'one day', so I just went ahead.

Luckily I dont think its in the Japanese spirit to captilize / rip-off people by putting up prices just because there is a possibility of those particular products being the 'last' of their kind.

So yes, the prices were exactly the same as they'd be normally, fortunately.

[Egpt]

i think that the only jeans that are going to have to drop the arcuates and tags are the ones that are sent to america.

in japan, afaik they are gonna keep the arcuates and tags as before.

this has happened with evisu. euro models cannot have red tags and i think that is the reason why the euro models sligthtly changed the gull design from the japanese versions which resemble more to the levis arcuate.

i remember back in 1999 or 2000 when a few pairs of japanese evisus hand painted by yamane(about 100 pairs with lots of different designs) had to have the red tags removed as soon as they entered the U.K. because of levi's.

all the japanese repro brands exist for many many years with the tags and arcuates, and i think the only reason levi's acted is because their "copyright" is only accepted in the UK and US. i could be wrong though, but a few years ago i read something about this somewhere.

[Neilfuji]

all the japanese repro brands exist for many many years with the tags and arcuates, and i think the only reason levi's acted is because their "copyright" is only accepted in the UK and US. i could be wrong though, but a few years ago i read something about this somewhere.

please don't call us all 'repro' brands.....

there is a huge amount of denim in Japan that is pushing forward using better shapes and blocks...

it will alway be a point of trademark but not enforced as much as we've been told

neil

[Neilfuji]

Hi Neil,

Yeah, just to clarify again, it might look like I'm attacking Kiya's posts, and I just want to stress I'm not at all. quote]

No one is attacking Kiya or saying anything about his posts on this...

it our views I want to know as I hope do the rest of SF, it's an open place to say what yo think about everything denim

Neil

[synthi]

Now that the dust is settling it seems to be transpiring that it's the arcuates & leather patch that seems to matter most as we've since heard that brands such as Skull & Eternal are 100% unaffected by the action. Given that Toyo have removed the arcs from their jeans effective August 2006 and that their rear leather patches never did feature two anythings ripping apart a pair of jeans, my feeling is that the red tab is indeed not a registered trademark of Levi's in Japan. Otherwise surely Toyo would have removed the arcs and the tab?

According to Kiya all the affected brands such as SDA will be chaging their arcs and leather patches so once current stock is depleted in Japan, things it seems will change. We have no reason to doubt that given the source of his info (i.e horse and mouth).

[Neilfuji]

hi

AGAIN...no one is calling anyone anything, we do not doubt that he is say what was said to him....

we're asking how this news may have changed your views on Japanese denim, was it all hyped past any reason? wasi t a process that got out of hand and do you care?

was the price a fair one to pay

is there any feeling that the 'hype' pushed you into buying more than you would have?

did you buy?

Neil

[diewhitegirls]

I love this thread. It says so many things I've been thinking. The lawsuit had barely anything to do with the Japanese brands, let alone Selfedge and BiG. It was mainly focused on much larger corporations. The whole thing was the same thing that Levis did: scared the people into action. I'm sure it was transparent to other people than myself, but like I said before there is technically nothing wrong with it. It's just shameless self-promoting.

[calatrava]

the action taken by levis made me indignant (however illogical that may have been). it made an exclusive item even more scarce, well it appeared to be so when kiya posted on sufu. i was going to purchase a pair of sda's, but i had the feeling that i would have still been able to buy a pair with tab and arcuate if it was imported from japan.

in the end i didnt buy any new jeans, but im left with some animosity towards levis, to the extent that I will actually conciously avoid buying their products (but then again, its not i had many in the first place)

at the end of the day it was a threat that made it harder to get the jeans with the details that some desired. so its like the situation before BIG and SE came, but not ...

[AlwayzFresh2Death]

I purchased Studio D'Artisan SD-103 from BiG for $245 ($260 shipped). I was planning on purchasing them later this year (in the summer) but I felt like I had to buy now because I wanted the arcuates, leather patch and tags in tact. $245 was the price that BiG set when they first went online last summer so the lawsuit didn't jack up the price. I think both Self Edge and BiG kept their prices the same, and didn't try to take advantage of the situation even though they probably could have.

Hey, what si this BiG sotre your talkign about, I have been looking for some Studios for a while now... Please give me the URL, if you have it...

AlwayzFresh2Death

[ericdw]

The lawsuit had barely anything to do with the Japanese brands, let alone Selfedge and BiG. It was mainly focused on much larger corporations.

i was just talkin to the guys at deep sleep in philly yesterday about their sugar cane account, and they said that levis is also goin after US companies like seven for their pocket stitching and stuff...

and yeah, i was plannin on buying some jap denim soon, and after the lawsuit, i bought earlier than i would have otherwise... and also decided on a pair of samurai - i'm almost ashamed to say that the contraband aspect made them more appealing...