"How to Buy 501® Shrink to FitTM Jeans / Waist -- If your normal waist size is 27""-26"", add 1""; 38""-48"", add 2""; 50"" and up, add 3"" / Length -- If your normal length is 27""-34"", add 3""; 36"" and up, add 4"". The original button-fly five-pocket 501® Jean in Shrink-to-Fit® denim. Cut straight through the seat, thigh and leg. Wear them cuffed or uncuffed, true to size or sized up for a looser fit. Denim will shrink approximately 10 percent. Size up to accommodate shrinkage."
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Rockpants! Comment: Awesome pants. Sizing suggestions are correct. Mine are still slightly long after two washes, but i'm guessing they'll fit perfectly after another wash or two. Customer Rating: Summary: Great Pair of Jeans. - Rugged Material Comment: I was very impressed on when i got these jeans in. They are nothing like any other pair i've owned. When you first get them in they are extremely rugged and tough but after a few washes the material softens and the jeans begin to form around your body. These jeans go great with almost anything but i prefer to wear them with wovens or shirts because of the clean / crisp color. If you do not want them to change their feel (soften) wash them rarely and in cold water and hang dry them. Customer Rating: Summary: Not what they used to be Comment: I have always loved Levi 501 Button Fly jeans. I have never flinched a paying a bit more for them since I wear them often. On 2 of the last 3 pair I've bought, the inner leg near the crotch has worn out quickly...like a few weeks. My partners' 501's did the same. They fit loosely enough. I can only blame the quality of the material.
I guess I must learn to wear something else but I would prefer it if they would increase the quality. Customer Rating: Summary: 501s aren't what they used to be... Comment: Levis 501s aren't what they used to be. In early 2003 or so they changed them drastically. They probably based this on sales and marketing ideas, but the effect was a jean that acquiesces to the ghetto-philia and prudish style of mens clothing that attempts, with great success, to hide the male anatomy. The "new" 501s are baggy, hang too low, the seat is bunched and nonexistent, the legs are too loose and the rise is too short. They look like potato sacks. If you want to wear these at your natural waist or a little below you will be in for a, shall we say, uncomfortable surprise.
Levis claims that "501s have always been changing." Not like the 2003 change. No way. They were a little boxy and baggy in the 50s, but they rode at the waist and were tight. 60s and 70s were tighter still, but nice and well formed in the legs. The 80s were the tightest and the legs were smaller; the 90s broadened that a very little bit. The 2003 change ruined it all. Oh, and the fabric isn't as good, but that's a minor thing in comparison. Customer Rating: Summary: Levi's 501 "Original Wedgie Jeans" Comment: I bought these jeans according to the 'shrink-to-fit' sizing specifications (1" bigger around the waist and 3" longer on the inseam), and indeed, after washing & drying, the waist and inseam fit fine. The problem lay elsewhere: The seam running along the backside was too short, inflicting a perpetual wedgie on my beloved posterior. This insufficient back seam, coupled with an absurd excess of fabric over the buttock region, created a most unpleasant effect of siphoning the excess denim up my @$$ as I walked like a freakin vortex!
In my faith that these 'classic' jeans might redeem themselves with time, I have suffered untold agonies trying to break them in. My friends, you do not know "humiliation" until you have walked around the office incessantly tugging at your tormentor, sidling along walls past that secretary you haven't had the courage to approach even on your better days, then trudging across campus, hands covering your backside, head bowed in shame. I fought a valiant, though at times less-than-noble struggle. But alas, the wedgie persists, and my ego is but a paltry shadow of its former self.
Lo! I have seen the devil; his skin is a deep indigo, his eyes gleam like brass rivets, and his flank bears the mark 5-0-1.
