These are men’s Wrangler relaxed fit straight leg jeans. Mine are black and they look like a designer item on. Seriously. They cost $17. Women should buy men’s jeans, they are cheaper and you can find a cut which will fit. Nobody should buy designer jeans. Buy work jeans, they are better designed and better made.
Finally, the best jeans are to be found in places like grocery stores. I found these in a discount drug store. They are made of sturdier denim, and are better cut than the Levi’s women’s 515 jeans I bought last spring at a sporting goods store. These stretch out so much while you wear them that they really only fit right the first couple of hours out of the dryer.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I love that you’re investigating the politics of purchasing jeans, and I basically agree with what you’ve written here. However, I will say that it’s not always true that cheap jeans are more durable. I have jeans from Guess that will apparently never die, and jeans from Costco and Old Navy that pop their belt loops and get holes in the pockets after roughly a month.
Ssssh, your urban diversity is showing.
Retailers want middle class Americans to think that Costco and Old Navy are the “cheap” or should I say “affordable” option, when it is nothing more than an opportunity to take advantage of that thought process.
Old Navy and Costco are not the example of buying cheap jeans from a super market or other known, but not really known, local markets. Fiesta mart comes to mind when I think of buying durable cheap jeans vs designers jeans such as Bebe.
Fiesta Mart, good call.
Costco and Old Navy are bad, it’s true, and Guess is good, it’s true. But Guess, you know, isn’t in the super expensive jeans category.
I love it. “The Politics of Jeans” … and you are absolutely right … designer jeans can’t beat work denim and steel toe boots in my case … and I wear them to class too.
Though I must admit that there is a dress code at the University in South Africa.
Faculty are supposed to be smart-casual … whatever the hell that colonial press may mean.
I trust you are well PZ.
Peace to you,
Ridwan
Me, I am a thrift shop gal and recently discovered what a little bit of spandex can do. Man.
No woman with hips like mine can wear men’s jeans. However, the rather expensive jeans from Talbot’s fit me perfectly through the waist and hips. I have four pair that I got years ago that are hardly worn out. I never put them in the dryer.
oooh, I’ll check out the Talbot’s label.
Do you all know Lucille Clitfton’s poem about her hips?
Here it is:
homage to my hips
the hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don’t fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don’t like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!
I love that poem, Rebel Girl. I don’t have ’em any more in the way I used to, but back in the day…oh, my. Nice memories. Thanks.
As for jeans, I like thrift shops myself. But I tend to wear my jeans forever anyway (rather than trend following), so in the end, I don’t feel guilty regardless.