Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 23, 1994 TAG: 9407210004
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And right at the top of that list is a pair of blue jeans that fit.
Guys won't understand this. They just whisk in and out of stores that sell Levis to grab a pair of 501 button flies in the size they've been wearing for years.
And they never even try them on.
Not us.
Finding the right pair of jeans is an ordeal matched only in difficulty and humiliation as the annual search for a bathing suit.
Only finding jeans are worse.
The bathing suit hunt is only a seasonal thing.
Jeans are a staple of life. Right up there with bread, water, television and chocolate.
I own more than 25 pairs of blue jeans.
This week, three pairs of them fit.
Next week, who knows?
I have two favorite pairs. For different reasons, neither of them fit.
First are the Hunter's Run jeans I wore in college that have paint spattered on them and have legitimately worn out at the knees. If I bound my stomach, hips and thighs in some sort of girdle, there's hope I could get them zipped up. I refuse to give them up.
The second pair are Donna Karan. Size 10. Originally priced at something like $145, but I bought them on sale for less than $50.
Why do I love these jeans?
They are a size 10 - the smallest I fit into - and the waist is HUGE! I feel like an absolute waif when I wear them. That Donna Karan really knows how to make a woman happy.
I recently launched a search for the perfect pair of jeans. This search was inspired by the very yuppie J. Peterman Co., a mail-order catalog regularly made fun of in ``Doonesbury'' for its extravagantly priced Gatsby shirts ($83), Shubert Theatre 1927 vest ($125), Irish Cloak ($895), Hemingway caps ($35) and Marie-Antoinette nightshirts ($37).
J. Peterman also proudly offers J. Peterman Jeans for Woman, designed by women.
The catalog admits that men don't have the vaguest notion about what women want in a pair of jeans. Over the years, men sit down and design jeans that are torture for women to wear. But J. Peterman Co. decided to ask women what they wanted in a pair of jeans.
Here's what they discovered:
``We need jeans that fit big butts, little waists, big butts, medium waists, medium hips, medium waists.''
It is just that simple.
The catalog promises that if you'll come clean with their operator when you call the toll-free number with your REAL measurements, you'll get the perfect pair of jeans.
While waiting for them to arrive, I tried on just about every pair of blue jeans this town has to offer in an effort to find the perfect jeans.
If such a thing exists.
First stop, County Seat in Tanglewood Mall. Here, you'll find every possible jean Levi Strauss has to offer and a small selection of the au currant Guess?
Let's define sort of what my body type is. I've got a relatively small waist, bigger hips than I'd like to have and thighs I'd rather not discuss.
The first thing that drives me crazy about Levi Strauss is that you have to be a member of Mensa to understand what all those 500 numbers mean.
There are 505s, 501s, 550s, 551s, 512s, 521s, 560s and 561s.
Rebekah Ross, assistant manager at County Seat, was a big help.
We were kindred souls, Rebekah and I. We both prefer the 550 (translation: relaxed fit jeans, loose seat and thighs, and tapered legs).
We both confided that we wear the same size, too. Size 12. After revealing such intimate information, Rebekah and I checked each other out. You know, our bodies really don't look a thing alike, but I felt happy to fit into the same size jeans this woman wears.
The same feeling swept over me at a party for a male co-worker who was wearing what I thought were Levi 505s in size 32 x 32 - the same size I wear, I thought, in 505s. OK, so he's a guy. But he's a tall, slim guy, and if I look like him in my jeans, then maybe that's not such a bad thing.
You haven't done your job right in buying a pair of jeans if you try on fewer than six pairs and you haven't broken a sweat going through the gyrations to wriggle and wedge yourself into them.
I tried on over a dozen pairs of jeans at County Seat.
It was exhausting and discouraging, but there were flickers of hope.
I've lost almost 30 pounds recently and was proudly walking around in a pair of black 31 x 30 550s.
See, about 20 years ago, Levi Strauss woke up and decided they could make jeans for women without broadcasting our waist and inseam sizes on that brown patch. They marked the sizes inside, women's sizes like 6, 8, 10 or 5, 7, 9, like all the other clothes we wear.
But you can still buy 550s with the waist emblazoned on the label if you want.
Since the black 31 x 30 jeans I wore into the store made me look like about as Kate Moss-like as I'll ever get, I thought I'd get myself another pair - and why not broadcast those figures? In blue, maybe.
Figured I'd try the 501s. If the 550s fit, the 501s should, right?
Uh, forget it. Humiliating.
That's because 501s are Levi Strauss' original button fly classics that you hear so much about. Their original jean. Made for men. Men, who are built straight up and down. Basically, that means their hips and waists are the same size.
I couldn't get the 501s up much further above my knees.
Rebekah sympathized.
``If they're slim fit, they'll fit your waist, but you won't be able to get them over your legs,'' she said. ``If you get them to fit in the waist, then you can't get them over your hips. So you buy what fits over your hips and buy a good belt to make your waist look small.''
After my Levi Strauss experience, I fearfully headed for Guess?
Guess? are what I like to call the Tori Spelling jean. They're the ones with the status triangles plastered on the hip pocket that you have to be poured into and then wear with no hope of exhaling or sitting down.
I fit into the size 32s. (If you really want to be confused, they say on the label that's a size 42 if I ever want to buy them in France.)
This brings me to the single most embarrassing thing I've ever done in my life.
I call it the ``Guess? diet.''
Some years ago after losing weight, I bought myself a pair of Guess? 32s. As I lost weight, I'd reward myself with the Guess? 31s. The Guess? 30s (I have two pairs of those). I made it all the way down to the Guess? 28.
Did I mention that Guess? jeans run, oh, $58 a pair?
The Guess? diet cost $290. Today, only the first pair of Tori Spelling 32s fit, and I never wear them because I don't really like the color and have decided exhaling and sitting down have become priorities in my life.
``Why doesn't Guess? make relaxed fit jeans?'' I asked Rebekah.
They do, she informed me.
``Just buy Guess? for men.''
The difference?
The triangle is green, and they're sized like Levis. And cost $62.
She handed me the Guess? for men 33 x 32. I looked like Bozo. The waist was huge.
She handed me the Guess? for men 32 x 32. The waist fit, but I looked like Bozo from the waist down.
So let's rule out Guess? At least for me.
But if you're a teen-ager, Mari Croan, who'll be a junior at Salem High, assures me that if you want to survive high school, you MUST wear Guess?
When I first moved to Roanoke, I asked someone where the Gap was.
What?! No Gap?
``Then where do you buy jeans?'' I asked.
Without hesitation, they recommended Hill's.
At Hill's, my search for the perfect pair of jeans brightened. Here you'll find American basics: Lee and Wrangler.
Wrangler, size 12, relaxed fit. The most comfortable pair of jeans I've ever worn for - get this! - $18.87. The label promises basic, comfortable, authentic, superior fit, satisfaction guaranteed - and delivers all.
Not only that, but they fit in all colors.
With the Levis, the light blue ones may fit in one size, but you've got to start all over from scratch if you want black or dark blue.
Not Wrangler. Dark blue. Black. Light blue. Same size. They all fit.
The Lee Easy Riders were semi-Tori Spelling, but I could breathe and didn't look that bad in them.
I especially liked the pleasant voice on the public address system as I was leaving Hills that chirped, ``If there's a problem, let our general manager know. We don't want you going through our front door without a smile on your face.''
Days later, the J. Peterman Co. ``perfect'' jeans arrived and were just that.
Perfect.
Well worth coming clean with an operator about what size your hips and thighs really are.
And they boast a modest J. Peterman Co. label on the hip pocket.
Tout le monde will assume I spent a fortune, but they were only $38, a virtual bargain in this catalog.
Still, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a perfect pair of jeans.
Rebekah at County Seat agrees.
``Only God can make a perfect pair of jeans,'' she philosophized.
``And he doesn't work in any denim factory I can think of.''
by CNB