There are Levis and then there is everything else. Jeans should have the Levis stitching, tab and patch on the back or they are simply something else. Having said that, buying Levis is not easy. The styles are named with numbers, but over time the shape of the jeans changes. Today's 501s are not the same shape as 501s from a few years ago, and my 501s are much wider below the knee than the photos of 501s on Amazon or on Levis.com. Not the same at all. And I bought mine in the Levis store in Beverly Hills where they cost more money, and I still had to try on several to get the right size, and the sizes printed on the patches is only a rough guide.

Most reviews here focus on the offshore production and quality issues. I have not had any quality issues with any foreign made Levis so far. But I have had issues with sizing consistency, which is why buying jeans online is not worth the trouble of returns and exchanges. Sort it out in a store's fitting room before you ever buy them.

Today's fashion is for a slimmer jean, but if you try a 514 Slim Straight you will see that not only are they slimmer, but they also have too much fabric at the butt and they want to sit lower, and the pockets are too low. 505 Straight Fits, which in theory should be la lot like 501s with a zipper, are completely different from 501s. The 505s that I tried, while all slightly different in shape, all had a bizarre flare at the outside of the thighs, a much narrower leg opening, a slimmer lower leg, and again, they want to sit at the hip and give you a big empty space at the butt. The pockets are so low that your legs look a foot shorter. Not attractive at all. Perhaps if your thighs, hips and buttocks are more plentiful and curvaceous the 505s may fit more normally. They may be called Straight but they are not for straight figures, quite the opposite. You need fat and curves to fill them out. 505s fit quite terribly for my figure, except for the black ones, which share only the name 505 with the denim ones.

So the age-old classic 501s still flatter the typical male form the best, despite being quite wide-legged by today's standards. But again, if you have saved your old jeans over the years, you will clearly see that 501s are always changing. The waist rises and falls and tapers in and out in relation to the hips, the legs widen and narrow, the pockets get larger and smaller and higher and lower, and further apart and closer together, and only the name remains constant over time. And no revision warnings are ever issued.

One other reason to try on and buy in a store, 501's come in many colors and almost no two are made from the same fabric. There are so many different weights of denim, each with a different fit, that you have to compare the fabrics by standing, sitting and squatting in a fitting room. So take a quiet weekday morning off, go to a department store or a Levis store, and invest an hour or more to find your next great Levis in the stack of unpredictability. Buying online is unlikely to get you that perfect pair.