The Underwhelmer

Last Friday, after logging a few hours at beautiful, under-utilized Fort Tilden beach in Brooklyn, I decided it was time to size my first pair of Levi’s 501 Shrink-to-Fits. For a month they had sat in my closet, a crisply folded pile of denim potential. If I never fit them, I would never get to wear them, but I would also never screw them up — so went my thought process. 501 StFs, see, are an imprecise science. You buy them radically larger than whatever size you’d normally wear, in anticipation that the legs will shrink by at least two sizes and the waist by at least one. Even the cashiers at the Levi’s store couldn’t say exactly what I should expect, though they were quick to point out that StFs have a no-hassle 30-day return policy even after you size them.

How, exactly, does one “size” jeans?

Wearing them in a tub, obviously. There’s a lot of conjecture out there — some guys just wash them in hot water, some walk into the ocean wearing their Shrink-to-Fits. I drew a hot, almost too-hot, bath, and slipped in wearing nothing but the jeans. Within a minute indigo dye had turned the water a pretty, translucent blue and my girlfriend was asking me what the hell I was doing wearing jeans in the tub. “Why would you want to buy jeans that make you do so much work?” she asked after I’d explained the scene. I stammered out something about it being an experiment and that 501 Shrink-to-Fits are supposed to fit really well and that there’s something cool about having a hand in creating your jeans. She cocked an eyebrow, then closed the bathroom door, condemning me to sauna-like conditions as I splashed around in the tub, sweat pouring from my brow, wondering if I was doing it right.

After half an hour spent par-boiling, I drained the tub, stood up…and realized that the jeans were still dripping indigo-laden juices. Some guys hang their 501s to dry, but I wanted to go the wearing-them-dry route. Supposedly, this lets you fine-tune the fit, since you can do some lunges or deep squats if the jeans get too tight. This meant standing in the tub like a jackass, swaying and humming to myself for another 30 minutes. Then I got bored and decided that if I put plastic bags on my feet, I could contain the dripping enough to get through my carpeted bedroom and into the backyard.

I spent a shirtless 30 minutes in the backyard playing games on my iPhone and earning a belt of mosquito bites around my waist. Then the ladyfriend wanted dinner, and I consented to just taking off the damn jeans already and leaving them to dry on a stool.

Today marks my 501s’s coming out party, and I’m pleased with the end product. The length is spot-on and the waist fits perfectly — not too snug, not too loose. (That’s always been my trouble spot, thanks to my over-round ass.) The jeans are stiff as boards and a little scratchy, but that’s easily conquered by wearing them often and never letting them see the inside of a washing machine.*

*PRO-TIP: When your unwashed jeans start to smell, put them in the freezer for a good 24 hours. They’ll come out smelling much less offensive.