A Levi's "36" today is probably more like 39 inches. In fact, most companies have been "vanity sizing" to make people feel better.

The worst offender is "Old Navy" where a 36" is actually a whopping 41 inches. It seems like men won't buy pants that are labeled over 39 inches, so as sizes go up from 30 inches, the "vanity" excess goes up exponentially.

See: https://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a8386/pants-size-...

How is vanity sizing not false advertising?!

because they don't make any claim that a size 38 is 38 inches.

they used to be, but these days a "size 38" designation doesn't carry any more actual meaning than women's clothing sizes like "size 0"

No one is getting mad or feeling bad about fitting a smaller size than they've earned. It takes a complaint for it to be an issue.

Levi's is one of the worst offenders. There is such a massive sizing variance that I stopped buying them years ago unless I found them in a store.

Yeah, I've had Levi's in front of me where nominally "smaller" sizes of the exact same jeans were visibly bigger. For the life of me I don't understand why measuring jeans to better than an inch is so hard in the 21st century. How is there no incentive for them to fix this? Do they profit from giving people the wrong size?

i think i figured it out. they measure cut sew dye wash. the size changes during the wash, variably depending on the dye and randomness. it would be cost prohibitive to control for this so instead you get size variability which is fine because most people buy in store.

I'm not sure what wash you're referring to, but I'm talking about brand new jeans. Can't they measure whatever they want at the end of manufacture instead of the beginning? It's not like the consumer wears anything but the end product. The error bars are ridiculous.

brand new jeans are washed before you get them. it gives them the texture.

i noticed that a certain jean i buy fit consistently only within a given dye and wash. darker pair or different wash fit differently.

Yeah I get that they're washed, but I don't care if they're washed... can't they just measure something after the wash? Is what I'm asking.

I'm talking about the exact same dye btw. Like the same color, number, everything. Only difference is sizes. I've gotten smaller sizes an inch larger than the "larger" sizes for the exact same jeans. It's ridiculous.

> can't they just measure something after the wash?

of course they can! those jeans cost double.

it’s not a matter of incompetence or don’t care. it’s a matter of production efficiency.

as for otherwise identical jeans being different sizes, that’s also a matter of consistency of the raw material. if you want high consistency it costs more. consumers aren’t willing to bear that cost.

Maybe they came out of different factories?

I gave up on pants sizes. You really have to go there and there is no system to it. Sometimes the numbers get bigger, sometimes smaller.

With shoes there is at least consistency because it seems like it became a penis enlargement thing there. On some brands my size grew from 43 to 47 in the recent years.

heh. i guess i knew my size in Levis, it's been more than a few years since i actually bought a pair of their pants.

Guy jeans are real easy because those numbers are actual measurements. Woman's jeans just change that to a single number that changes through the years. Uhg, so annoying.

No they aren't. I got two pairs of jeans from the same (house) brand in the same store at the same time. I tried on one of them in the store, and naively assumed the other would fit too.

There was a 5 cm (2 inch) difference.

I don't think she was implying that the sizes are always correct. But they are actual dimensions, i.e. inches. As opposed to "size 8", which is relatively meaningless.

What really pisses me off too is the size drifts to make you think you're going down pant sizes. So every so years you need to try clothes on again to get your new number.

Pair that with covid not letting you try things on and it just plain sucks. Sometimes I have to try shotgunning it so I'm not making 3 trips to the store just to try a new number.

The inseam is but the waist usually isn’t. It’s just standardized between brands much more than women’s jeans.