Because Sizes Aren’t Written in Stone : If the Levi’s Fit, Will Women Order Them? : Tailoring: You’re measured, you pay $10 extra and soon you have custom jeans. Kind of. Strauss’ new product has its fans--and limitations.
Would you pay an extra $10 to let a computer choose your next pair of Levi’s?
So far, an estimated 900 women have said yes to the option, introduced last fall on a limited basis.
And why not? The customer would get what one analyst called “individually tailored goods and services,” while the manufacturer would avoid costly overproduction. “You’re not mass-producing product and hoping it sells. You’ve already got a sale,” a Levi Strauss & Co. executive told the New York Times. Everyone, seemingly, would win.
But after making headlines late last year as a revolutionary way to customize mass merchandise, some limitations in the concept have surfaced.
After two months, the program’s working title was revised “to ‘personal fit,’ rather than ‘custom fit,’ ” which, Barbara Kates acknowledged, “is misleading.” Kates is director of visual merchandising for the Original Levi’s Stores, scattered throughout the northeast, where the program is offered.
Indeed, early reports suggested that a woman who visited a selected Original Levi’s Store, had her measurements fed into a computer and paid the $10 fee could have a pair of jeans custom-made for her particular body. But the “personal fit” jeans are limited to the approximately 400 samples contained in each store. All are size variations on Levi’s tapered-leg, zipper-fly 512 jeans for juniors and 521 for women. Depending on the part of the country in which they are sold, the finished jeans could cost up to $65.
A salesperson measures the customer’s waist, hips, inseam and rise--or the distance from crotch to the waistline. She punches the information into a computer, which suggests a sample for the customer to try (and eventually which software pattern is sent electronically to the Levi’s factory in Mountain City, Tenn.).
If the first sample doesn’t fit perfectly, the customer can indicate where she wants improvement. The salesperson then either feeds the new data into the computer or simply pulls another sample off the rack. Even then a woman might not find her Personal Pair (the trademark name). “We hope to fit a lot of women, but you can’t fit everyone,” Kates said.
Levi’s is targeting two consumer groups. The first contains “a small percentage of women who feel they never received a pair of jeans that fit,” said company spokesman Sean Fitzgerald. “They may be thin, or they may have a smaller waist and bigger thighs. The second group is what we call ‘the denim connoisseur,’ those women who have to have the ultimate pair of jeans.”
A recent sampling of Southern California shoppers didn’t turn up any apparent denim connoisseurs. But some women said they would be interested in trying the service when it arrives in Southern California--which might take two to five years, said Fitzgerald.
True to Personal Pair predictions, tall, thin Beverly Center shoppers, such as model Danielle Boatwright, were near-euphoric over the possibility of finding jeans that are long enough. Her most recent jeans hunt was typical. She tried on 15 to 20 pairs and was happy, she says, “to find one pair that fit.”
Heather Anderson, a Size 18 law student, says she would “definitely check out” the Levi’s program and be willing to pay the extra $10. But her enthusiasm was tempered by unhappy teen-age memories of how Levi’s “looked better on guys.” Girbaud, she said, already makes her dream jeans.
Other former Levi’s shoppers said they had defected to the Gap camp and are content there. A number of women expressed zero interest in “personal fit” jeans, especially with a zipper fly. But they say they would jump at the chance to have personal-fit blazers, dresses, swimsuits, bodysuits and perhaps most importantly, personal-fit pantyhose.
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What a Pair
Levi Strauss & Co. is offering some of its East Coast female customers “personal fit” jeans based on four body measurements: rise, inseam, waist and hips.
* Waist and Hips: Seperate measurements mean no more belt-cinching or sagging across the butt.
* Rise: The distance from the crotch to the top of the waistband. Hip-huggers, for example, have a low rise.
* Inseam: The distance from the crotch to the hem. An inseam deficiency causes flood pants.
