I would like if some of my 21st-century jeans would hold together for more than a year or two.
Lately I've been wearing the Oni "secret denim" collection [1][2] and they're amazing. It's only been a couple of years, but they break in beautifully and feel like they'll last years. It's worth spending the extra money for something high quality that will last.
I say just buy it, you'll wear it for decades! Denimio has some discount codes and the shipping is free (took less than a week to get it here in NYC from Japan).
I'm one of those males who finds shopping for clothes a pain, so when the old tried-and-true method of simply calling into a shop and quickly selecting jeans from the badge type number and size failed I was a bit pissed off. These days, there are just too many types of jeans around for my liking (I now have to think before I choose), but no doubt that's half the fun for those who like shopping around.
Been checking around since my earlier reply and it seems you're right, quality denim is now expensive. I've avoided raw and high quality denim for years because it was expensive and it required me to be careful with it (I'm notoriously hard on clothes). It now seems that if I want better quality I'll have to do the research first.
BTW, decades ago when I was a kid all jeans were made of raw denim. We weren't allowed to sit on the sofa or lie on the bed etc. until our jeans had been washed several times so the indigo wouldn't rub off and leave blue marks on everything. One thing for certain was that they were a damned side tougher than any jeans I've worn in recent years.
Edit: your comment about stretch material just got me wondering if one of the main reasons for why manufacturers are now pushing stretch fabric so hard is that they don't have to worry as much about the actual fit nor their manufacturing tolerances (thus cheaper to make). I haven't had a pair of stretch jeans in years but some of my cargo work pants are made of stretch fabric. A while back, I made a single purchase of four pairs of the same brand and size and noticed a good half inch difference in the waist between them (and that was before I wore any of them, so the difference wasn't caused through use). At the time I didn't think anything of it as the 'slack'—so to speak—was taken up by the stretch.
I just shopped at the Levi's store at the mall in San Jose, and the jeans I mentioned were hidden on bottom shelves under all of the horrible synthetic crap. The good stuff is there, you just have to look for it.
This. I get only the natural, non-stretch fabrics (Leviticus 19:19, FTW!) and mine typically last up to a decade or more with decent care (turning them inside out before washing, washing only when visibly soiled, etc.).
Now granted, this is also a problem now that I’m losing weight, as they’re too loose to use without a strong belt, but too good of a condition to justify replacing.
For what it's worth, I wear mostly pretty cheap American Eagle jeans with stretch and they have lasted years on me. And that's despite basically wearing only four pairs of them in heavy rotation.
A big part of it is that I don't wash them every time I wear them. If I don't do anything to get them actively dirty or sweaty, I'll wear them a few times before they go in the wash. My understanding is that washing machines are, by a very large margin, the largest source of wear in clothing.
...And the sodium percarbonate used as a stain remover in washing powders rots the fabric and also attacks the metal in zippers.
Right. Always impatient, I have worn out far too many clothes in the dryer instead of waiting for air drying (dryers are a conspiracy by manufacturers to sell more clothes). ;-)
I will say, "a year or two" is an exaggeration for some of my jeans. But I usually only have 2-4 pair with no holes that I rotate between, and most develop wear in the knees if not outright holes by the end of 2 years.
In either case though quality fabric manufactured in first world countries is going to cost a lot more than the stuff you see at shopping malls.