Even when I worked in women’s retail, I never made the jump into the heyday of designer jeans.

Levis are My Jean Choice

From college on, I was a Levi Jeans gal. During my ten years in Montana, someone gifted me a pair or two of Wranglers. I gave them a try. They didn’t fit my body right. The Wranglers got shoved to the back of the closet, used for yard work and climbing onto my roof to brush off snow. They eventually made their way to the giveaway bag and I went back to owning Levis.

Straight leg, curvy cut, boot cut, 505s, 415s, 714 —they’re all good. I’ve been looking for the perfect pair of 501 (button fly) but can’t seem to track them down.

For my friends, I want them to treat me like I treat my Levis … so welcome to be around, they resist parting with me as long as possible. I had two pair of colored Levis—wheat and sage—that didn’t fit post-menopausal me as well as they did pre-menopausal me, but I kept them. I’d longingly open the drawer, sigh, fondle their softness, and pull them on. They fit. But not with that same sexy panache they first had. Yet, I was reluctant to finally gift them to another. Then the perfect someone came along and I was happy to share.

Levi Jeans, various styles
Part of my Levi collection

Levis Survive Wear & Tear

By the time I’m ready to fully retire my Levis, they’re full of holes from adventures, ink stains from the pen that burst when I recorded thoughts during the flight to Italy. They will have a bit of fraying along the hems because they’re a half inch too long for my hiking shoes. My jeans live a long and busy life—they go places, get cookie dough smeared on them when I bake, they deliver gifts to friends… .They do all this long before they fully die, with blown out knees from too much spring gardening, and ripped back pocket edges from shoving my iPhone in one.

Levis Jeans are admired for their durability and so I wish to be. I want to be like my dad, whom we called The EverReady Bunny. I want to be like my great Aunt Edith. At 80-something she invited me to her house for an elaborate lunch before I went to work. I want to be like my neighbor, Helen, who in her late 80s told me: people see an old person when they look at me, but inside, I’m still 26. Yes, Helen, you sure were—conducting step-races with the other residents after you moved into the old folks home, creating new, fresh friendships no matter what your ages.

The Versatility of Good Levi Jeans

Levis are stylish, but understated and look great with a white cotton shirt. Having escaped corporate America to devote my time to writing mysteries, blogging about travel, creating blank travel journals for sale, making progress on a humorous memoir about my less than normal childhood … the outfit du jour is Levis (we folks who work at home don’t spend the day in our pjs) and a comfortable shirt. I’m not a big fan of t-shirts, so white cotton is the best, sleeves rolled up, buttons not choking me, tails out. Ah, to find a few of the chambray shirts I owned years ago, fashionable or not, they were utter comfort. Surely, I’m bound to come across them and those obscure 501s sometime, right?

Love New Dark Blue Denim

Levis retain their vibrancy long after the deep blue color fades. No stone washed or pre-washed twenty times, or arriving with holes already in them. Not for me. I want new, dark, stiff as a board Levis. My denim has to be so blue that I have to wash them alone the first few times so they don’t ruin other clothes. I want that indigo to fade onto the tags inside, turning them from white to Montana-sky blue. Then I want those jeans to wear the way I use them. My pointy knees always, well, make a point first—starting to change color along that stress area. Can’t be helped, I’ve tried everything. Then the butt because—who doesn’t wear out the seat of their jeans by sitting in them?

My current Levi collection consists of five pairs, counting the tan corduroys. The newest three years old, the oldest at least ten. Those eldest are so soft from wearing, washing, and drying that I could almost sleep in them. The newest, Denizen, is just hitting its stride of comfort, with that slight faded cast along the double seams.

Last Call for My Levis

If I were going to be buried, I’d request that chambray work shirt, old Levis and my Oboz hiking shoes be the outfit I get popped into. But I’m opting for cremation and why waste the cool clothes to fire? Pass them along to another crazy redhead.

Going out of this life like a pair of Levi jeans wouldn’t be so bad. I would be well-loved, used up, worn out in all the right places. But hey–I’d still look so good from the inside out that family and friends grudgingly let me go.

And yet, in saying good-bye, they’ll remember and hold onto the truth that throughout our friendships, I was the one they could count on to instigate the new and to hang around with them, conversations changing and evolving over the years, long after others drifted away.

*Don’t miss, The Impossibly Skinny Levis