Levi’s 501 Comparison
Levi’s 501 jeans are frequently brought up as “timeless” style. And then like clockwork someone will respond that the 501 cut has changed many times as tastes have changed. We are familiar with the general differences between 40s, 50s, and 60s 501s through repros. My question is has anyone done a comparison of more recent 501s? For example 2005 vs 2010 vs 2015 vs now?
I understand that this is probably an impossible task because of the amount of countries and factories used in addition to QC issues and variances in mass produced clothing. And used wouldn’t work for STF due to wash and drying differences. For a true answer a Levi’s designer would need to answer the question or a statistically significant sampling would need to be conducted.
But I’m still curious if anyone has done an initial cursory investigation?
5 Replies
There’s some interesting stuff in there but not exactly what I’m looking for
I don’t know if there’s enough difference in a 5 year window. Mine personal pairs are from the 90s and very early 00s. 90s seems to have a higher rise and fuller cut compared to 80s and 2000s though
I can for sure say that the STF denim is better than the non-stf. STF tags read 0501-0000
I don’t notice a ton (if any) difference between my 90s MiUSA stf and early 00s Guatemala stf
All I can say is they definitely made them a bit slimmer in the 2010s. I bought a new pair in around 2015 and ended up selling because they were too slim compared to my 90s and early 2000s pairs. They also started sewing the pockets on lower sometime in the 2000s (which makes them look worse with a shirt tucked in imo, but I guess is designed to look better sagged? Idk)
I haven’t personally compared but heard the pockets were/are better on the STF versus the non-STF. At least for the newish versions