Levis new fit system takes the guesswork out of which style of jeans will suit your figure best.
I hadn't worn a pair of jeans in five years. I had tried - many a time had I entered a changing room with a big pile of jeans, in an attempt to "start my denim wardrobe" as the fashion magazines encourage one to do. But each time I would
leave the store feeling frustrated, annoyed, fat. I hate jeans, I would say, and not wearing them became my thing.
It seems I am not alone in my frustration for shopping for jeans. So much so, iconic denim brand Levi's is set to introduce a new fit system to cater for such frustrations, and to make shopping for jeans that little bit easier. It's claim: to revolutionise the denim market. Well they managed to get me in a pair, so I'm a believer. I met up with Julie Pike, Levi's womenswear buyer for Australasia, recently to find out more.
"We did a survey and 54 per cent of women said they needed to try on 10 pairs of jeans or more to find a pair that fit okay. That's a lot of time in the changing room!" This makes people despondent, she says; Levi's want to cut down the number of pairs women are taking in.
This new system is about custom fits for women, the tagline being that it's about shape, not size. Sizing is typically unreliable anyway - you may be a size 6 in one store, a size 10 in another - so it is an interesting way to approach jeans.
Levi's partnered with a company with body scanning technology, and scanned 60,000 women around the world - from which they established three main bodyshapes that most women fall into. These were translated into three shapes.
So which one are you: slight, demi or bold? I'm a bold curve, which means I have a butt. Bold girls like me find jeans fit around their bum and thighs but often have gaping at the waist.
Girls with slight curves have straight hips, a small butt and skinny thighs, but find that jeans that hug everywhere else give them muffin tops at the hips.
A demi curve is the "most democratic" shape says Pike, meaning that it's the most popular - these girls want jeans that accentuate and flatten curves. But Pike stresses that slight, demi and bold doesn't translate to small, medium and large. "The initial assumption is that if you're skinny, you must be a slight curve, which is absolutely not true. I was in Japan and fitted a size 4 - and she was a bold curve."
Pike has been working on this project in Hong Kong for the last two years, having gone on "fit safaris" throughout India, China, Korea, South Africa, Hong Kong and Australia.
"The response has been amazing - particularly for girls who sit at the extreme, the bold or the slight curve. They dance, I've had tears. I had a girl do a cartwheel because she was excited she found a jean to fit her."
It may sound slightly over the top, but denim makes women do crazy things - especially those who haven't worn it in years.
So please excuse me while I go and do a cartwheel in my new pair of bold curve jeans.