After my previous post, Lee Jeans tweeted me and asked me to send them an email.
Over the weekend, I sent an email explaining what I’d said here, plus including photos of the various ways their jeans had disintegrated after four months of normal wear (and one photo of a pair of their old workhorse jeans from 2003, for comparison purposes.)
Lee Jeans wrote back and offered me a free pair of jeans that they claim will be sturdy and live up to the reputation of the old ones. I thought about it for a couple of days, and just now I wrote them again and said yes, try me.
I don’t know if I’m holding out hope, though, because the customer service rep (who did genuinely sound upset on my behalf) linked to a pair of jeans she recommended. She told me it was double-stitched and 98% cotton (which is what you expect on a pair of jeans) but when I visited the link, it was 72% Cotton/27% Polyester/1% Spandex. And in the photographs, it’s quite obviously got one seam down the inside of the legs, not two.
(I did check the men’s jeans, which are 99% cotton, and the double seam is visible on the men’s jeans. Therefore it’s not just my inability to see the stitching on a computer monitor.)
A twenty-year relationship is worth saving, if they actually sell this product. I’ll keep you posted.
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Updated: the customer service rep wrote back and said she had mistakenly linked to the wrong jeans, and was contacting someone else to find the actual set. That’s good.
I used to love Lee jeans, but left for a similar reason. I’ll be interested to hear how the new pair works for you!
I was wondering whether you’d get any answer! Indeed I was wondering whether you’d even sent your note to Lee. Did someone see it on your blog? What a feeling of power!
Do indeed let us know. Perhaps they have a cheapo version that is sold at cheapo stores and a better version that you have to step up from Walmart or whatever to get. This would be good to know about.
Yeah, the power of being a blogger. 😉 They’re monitoring Twitter for bad press, and that’s how I got contacted.
They did ask where I’d gotten the jeans, and they came from two or three different locations. I know one came from Kohls, so they didn’t all come from discount stores.
Products today only exist for two purposes. First to make as much money for the executives as possible. The second is a supporting aim to that: to be attractive at the point of sale. Whether products last in actual use is way down the list.
I don’t buy jeans or even many clothes, but I can give you some blokey examples. I bought a new hose. It was lovely and slick and shiny. But every time I tried to use it under any sort of pressure the hose would just slip off the fittings. Made to sell, not to use.
I was attracted to the news of a new watering device, so I asked about it at the local nursery. The plant person told me not to bother. It was some subsidiary of a larger corporation which had advertise the device. Their marketing company was checking whether there was sufficient interest to actually manufacture it. Last time I checked they still hadn’t bothered.
I do up old hand tools, some going as far back as the late 1800s. They simple and solid and they work. I recently took out of a box and old plane. I wiped it over with a damp cloth, sharpened the blade and it worked perfectly. The reason I needed it was because I had been using a new electric planer I bought a month ago for around $20. It was made in China, and I must say it did last almost the whole month!
Nothing last today. We live in an eternal now. We had an investment account for some years, just saving up for our retirement. The bank contacted us last month and said the government wanted to claim the money because it was an “inactive account”. So now we have to put money in regularly to hold onto our own money.
I’ve just got a new email address and so am working through my mailbox to alert people. There are many returns for people no longer having the email addresses they used to have.
Now when I want to buy something for a project I always try to buy just more than I need. If I run short and go back I can guarantee that the item will not be sold. The shop itself is likely to no longer be there. Survival skills: every day is a sealed container.
Go Get ‘Em Dear!
and do keep the updates coming 🙂