I agree that these sweet-n-lows fit strange. I have several pairs of this style, but the material on these seems stiffer and they are tighter in the hips than other s-n-l's. I was interested in the wash because it looks like the fading is subtle and the color pretty uniform throughout. But in person, the color is just kind of a "blah" blue. I just recently visited the Lucky outlet store, and I believe these are rejects from the outlet. They have the same kind of price tag, which has the higher "list price," crossed out, and "our price" below it. They are meant to be sold at "our price," which is $30 less than the list price. Amazon is charging the full (crossed out) list price. If they didn't fit poorly, I'd still be sending them back for the pricing issue alone.