Cheap designer jeans are being sought after every day. So many people want to get their hands on a pair of great premium jeans, but they just can’t afford the high price tag that comes with them. This is why we have put together a post letting you know that you don’t always have to pay the retail price of $160 upwards for an authentic pair of designer jeans. There are quite a few other ways to get your hands on a pair!

1 – During The Sales.

One of the best ways to get your jeans cheaper is during the sale seasons! This used to only be a few times a year, but now companies are offering sales throughout most of the year! There are the mid season sales, end of season sales, sales during the Christmas period, around Thanksgiving and Black Friday, Mothers Day, Fathers Day… There are a lot of times when the retail stores offer discount codes or drop their prices! You can’t go wrong!

Most of the time during these events though, you wont find the jeans for more than 20-30% off of their retail price, but when it’s the end of season sales, you can easily find the less popular styles with over 50% off of their original price. So the sales are always a good time to shop! You just have to keep your eyes open for the codes and seasons. Here on DenimBlog though, we always list the best places to shop when there are sales and we announce when companies are doing discounts too. Tobi.com are known for having great discounts and sales.

2 – Sample Sale Websites.

Sample Sale websites are a wonderful place to shop! Usually you have to be a registered member and the pop up sales last between 1-3 days. For example Gilt Groupe, Hautelook, Rue La La and Beyond The Rack (click on the names to register) are 4 of my personal favourite sites! They are very popular and they will have a schedule for the week of which sales are starting and when.

You can find brands like J Brand, Diesel, Siwy, Current/Elliott, James Jeans and so many more brands having pop up sales! When these sales happen you have to be quick with getting what you want into your basket because everyone has the same idea as you! The best part though is that you can find these jeans with over 50% off! Sometimes they can even have up to 90% off the retail price on the less popular styles. I have got some amazing deals on these websites before! The only thing is, these sales don’t happen all the time so you need to keep a regular check on the websites!

3 – Past Season Websites.

Past season websites like Yoox.com and TheOutnet.com are wonderful! Yoox carries a huge majority of designer brands (not just denim) and they are all past season pieces. So you will find the previous season jeans with a discounted price! Yoox is also full of Diesel jeans, so it’s a great place to snap those up for the men and women! The Outnet is actually Net-A-Porter’s sister site and it stocks all of the old Net-A-Porter products that are past season or didn’t sell. You can find amazing deals on there from Current/Elliott to Balmain and they also stock brands like Christian Louboutin, Miu Miu and Yves Saint Laurent. They are a great website and I have bought quite a few things from there! I have from both Yoox and The Outnet. Unlike the other ways to score cheap designer jeans, you don’t have to wait for the sale or a pop up sale because these two websites are stocked all the time.

4 – eBay.

Oh eBay! eBay can be such a wonderful place, but at the same time it can be awful. However, I have had way more good experiences than bad and it’s actually an amazing place to find cheap designer jeans! If you are not familiar with eBay (which I am sure you know all about it) it’s a huge auction website where members sell and buy their items. You do get actual stores on eBay though that are registered and sell authentic items. When you run a search on eBay, if you keep the words basic like ‘Diesel Jeans’ then you can come across some gems in amongst the rough! I have probably bought over 60 pairs of jeans on eBay over the time that I have had my account (quite a lot of years) and sometimes I have managed to get really good condition jeans for as little as £10 because they have been listed badly.

The only bad thing about eBay is that it’s also full of fake products. You have to be so careful with what you are buying because of the amount of fake jeans on there. You definitely don’t want to end up with a fake pair, so you need to make sure they are authentic. You can do this by having them checked out in the DenimBlog community and our members who are experts in different brands will be able to help you out, or you can leave a comment on DenimBlog and I can personally help you check the authenticy of the jeans. I learned many years ago on the DenimBlog community how to determine the fake jeans from the authentic jeans and once you learn how to do it, it’s actually quite easy to tell them apart. So don’t be afraid to ask and get them checked out!

Also, make sure you only buy from members who have a good positive feedback and that you pay with paypal using a credit card. That way you are not only covered by paypal (up to a certain amount) but you are also covered by your credit card company if in the event you were scammed by the seller. But always check their feedback and see what people have said about their transactions with the seller. This all might sound scary, but in general eBay is a good place to buy jeans. People usually don’t want their pairs anymore so they sell them on and you can pick up a pair that you have been searching for for many months at a great price.

5 – DenimBlog Community Mall.

Here at DenimBlog we also have a mall! All of the items that are listed in the mall are checked for authenticy so we only have authentic jeans listed by our members. In the past I have bought and sold many jeans in the DenimBlog mall and had only positive experiences with it. Our members love jeans and are very passionate about denim, so it’s a great place to buy and sell your jeans! You can check out the mall here and you can also join in the discussion about where to buy cheap designer jeans on the forum here.

I thought it would be fun to include this on the blog. It’s Donna Ida’s top tips for buying denim. As you know I took a trip last year to her denim clinic in London to try on lots of jeans and it was a great experience. Having worked with denim so long myself, I really saw that Donna and her team know denim so well! Not to mention Donna is wonderful! She’s so sweet! Enjoy her top tips!

1.) Be open minded. Always visit a denim specialist and be open to the suggestions the assistant makes. Like any garment all jeans are essentially the same – two legs, five pockets, but the magic is in the individual fit.

2.) If they go on easily, go down a size. Kicking your way into the legs isn’t unusual.

3.) The waistband should be snug, if you can fit two fingers down the back that’s good, a whole hand is not.

4.) A curved, or pieced waistband, is ideal. This will be slightly higher at the back than the front and will curve into your waist rather than sit straight up.

5.) High waisted jeans without a yoke can make the bottom look longer. Look for styles with a yoke if this is a concern.

6.) There should be no ‘grab’ room at the crotch when trying. The jeans should be nice and firm when you buy them, and loosen with wear.

7.) When buying jeans with super stretch, look for good quality denim that has great memory. The ‘memory’ is how quickly the denim springs back after wear.

8.) When buying jeans with super stretch buy them firm but not overly tight. If you have ‘seam strain’ down the legs, they are possibly too tight and this could damage the stretch.

9.) Look for white jeans with faux front pockets. If the style you choose has front pockets you can ask the tailor to remove them for a neater look.

10.) ‘Whiskering’ adds interest and depth on jeans around the crotch area and is a flatting feature. Lighter styles with no whiskering can sometimes look a bit ‘blocky’.

11.) When having your jeans hemmed for flares take the shoes you want to wear with them to the fitting. You should decide on the shoes and stick with those shoes for your flares.

12.) When having your jeans hemmed make sure the tailor always measures them from the back of the leg, i.e. at your heel, otherwise they may come back too short.

13.) Alterations can give you the perfect jeans. Think about adjusting the waistband or slimming the legs – small adjustments are not unusual.

14.) Pear shaped or curvy ladies who like skinny jeans should look at high waisted styles – it elongates the leg and slims down the hip.

15.) Apple shaped girls should look for plenty of stretch in a straight leg in a dark wash as they are the most flattering.

16.) Boyish shapes can wear most styles. Add some shape and interest with zips and details on back pockets.

17.) Long legs look best in a mid to low rise to keep the waist at the right height, whereas petite girls look great in a high rise that accentuates the waist and elongates the legs.

18.) Don’t be afraid to hem cropped jeans. People often think that if cropped jeans aren’t the right length then they’re not the jeans for them, but cropped jeans should be hemmed to fit properly, just like a bootleg or straight leg.

19.) Read the care instructions. Most premium jeans are best washed COLD, that’s cold and not 30 degrees, Any warmer and you are damaging the fabric.

20.) Have fun with your denim…the traditional five pocket jeans now come in a myriad of colours, patterns and fabrics. Just wear them with a simple white tee.

How To Stretch Your Jeans!

Stretching jeans is something that we all may have to do at some point in our denim lives. I myself have stretched out a lot of my jeans over the years and it’s definitely something that can be done quite easily. There are a few ways to do it, which I have listed below, but the best way (in my opinion) is by making the jeans wet.

Wet Stretching Jeans:

Whether your jeans are too small all over, or just too small in certain areas (the thighs, waist, butt etc), wet stretching will work. It’s very simple and very easy to do, it just requires patience and tolerance. There have been times where I have bought a pair of jeans and they have been too small and a bigger size was not available, so the only answer was stretching them out. It’s a simple 3 step process of water, wearing and stretching.

What you need to do is make the jeans damp, either all over, or very damp in the areas you need stretched. This is easy to do, just put water on them from the tap or you can give them a good soak with water in a spray bottle. I find warm water is better because it’s not such a shock to your skin. I don’t think anyone would really like walking/sitting around in cold and wet jeans.

After you have made your jeans wet, put them on. You will need to wear them around a lot, do lunges and squats, anything you can do to make the denim stretch. I must admit, to an outsider, the poses and techniques would look very weird! But it works. Obviously, if you have a delicate denim which is quite thin, be very careful when doing the lunges and squats, you don’t want to rip the fabric. If you want the waist stretched out, you can pull at it and tug it a lot when it’s wet, also, I used to put other items like small bottles or anything I could fit in between the waist of my jeans and my hips, this would help it stretch out more.

This method works the best when you have 100% cotton jeans or a mix of cotton/elastane jeans. It can be quite tricky to do this with poly blends and other different materials. You should leave your jeans on you, after all the stretching, until they dry. This will ensure that the denim will dry around your body instead of shrinking and drying when it’s off your body. Once you take them off you should have some luck with them being bigger than they were before you started.

Stretching Jeans With A Waistband Extender:

This is another, non wearing, way of stretching the waist of your jeans. You can buy something called a waistband stretcher and position it in the waistband of your jeans and leave it for a good while. It should stretch it out quite a bit. I haven’t personally tried this method, but I have used my own invention. I used a trouser hanger for a waistband stretcher. I slid the clips to each end, positioned it inside the waist of the jeans and then buttoned them up around it. You could see a lot of pulling, meaning it was stretched around it quite tight. I found that wetting the waistband helped even more though, wet denim just stretches so well.

Images courtesy of DenimBlog & Google Images.

#3

(Image from http://themostexpensivethings.com/most-expensive-jeans.html)

Jean #3 are in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive jeans, the Gucci Genius jeans as the most expensive “off-the-rack” jeans, with elaborate feathers, rips and other detailing, including African bead work. Each piece has unique details and no two pairs are the same. The price tag that landed these jeans in the Guinness Book of World Records is $3, 134.

(Image from Forbes.com)

While Gucci may officially hold the title of the most expensive jeans, other designers have featured off the rack jeans which come with hefty price tags. Escada made Forbes Magazine list of most expensive jeans with their handmade pairs of jeans. Including a pair encrusted with a Swarovski crystals, which are hand placed, down to every last crystal. The price tag for these is $10,000.

#2

(Image from: http://most-expensive.net/jeans-designer)

Perhaps the most surprising fact about the second most expensive pair of jeans is that they weren’t even manufactured in this century! Levi’s recently purchased a pair of their classic 501 jeans, dating back to the 1800s, on eBay for a whopping $46,532. If that doesn’t sound expensive enough, in 2005, the pair went to a Japanese collector for $60,000!

While it sounds like an exorbitant amount, paying these types of prices may actually be a fairly common practice for Levi’s. The brand is known to purchase almost any vintage pair of jeans that they can get access to, and recycle the materials in their new lines or showcase them in their clothing library.

#1

The price tag for the most expensive jeans in the world comes down to the details: diamonds, rubies, sapphires and gold. You can see these below.

(image from http://most-expensive.net/jeans-designer)

Dussault Apparel’s Trashed Denim offers men’s jeans which have been washed in a unique process 13 times. Between each wash, the jeans are dyed and painted, adding more depth to the wash. Then the glitz and glam are added on, each pair has sixteen 1-carat rubies, twenty-six .05-carat rubies, eight .05-carat diamonds and 1080 grams of 18k white or rose gold. This brings the price tag to $250,000.

(image from http://www.baur.de/content/tunk/categories/jeans/most-expensive-jeans-in-the-world.html)

Also featuring embellishments, Secret Circus offers denim that is diamond encrusted.  Featuring slightly less embellishments, Secret Circus still provides the bang for your buck, with 15 brilliant diamonds arranged in a unique pattern on the pocket. Average price for a pair is $1.3 million dollars.

You can also see how things have changed by browsing this post from a couple of years ago.

Source 1, Source 2.

Image of washing machine courtesy of electricshop.com

A pair of premium jeans, or any jeans in general, should always come with a care label. The care label is always important as it will give you the washing instructions for that particular pair of jeans. Some jeans with special coatings or embellishments will say ‘dry clean only’ and this will be because the water will most likely ruin the design of the jeans, so you should follow these instructions and take your jeans to a dry cleaner.

Most other jeans will say that you need to wash them on a low temperature and hang dry or tumble dry on low. The low temperature is important when washing your jeans because too much heat will shrink the fabric and it can also damage the elasticity of the denim which will make them sag and not fit as nicely as they did before. One thing you should always do before washing your jeans is turn them inside out. This helps to keep the wash as secure as it can be while being submerged in water. The inside of the jeans will get properly cleaned and take the beating around while the outside of the jeans will get washed, but in a more delicate way. It’s very important to do that unless you don’t mind your jeans fading quite fast.

If you have a pair of really dark, rinse colour jeans then you can also add a special vinegar or dye sealer to the wash to help lock in the colour. This will prevent the dye leaking onto any lighter stitching or from fading too quickly. If you have raw denim, they should have come with instructions for wearing them as long as possible before washing them, but you can also do soaks. These soaks just require you to submerge your jeans in water for a little while to clean them lightly without fading the raw denim fabric.

Image of a cotton field courtesy of savagebrushmfg.com

Jeans are a pair of pants which are made from the fabric denim. The word jeans comes from the French phrase bleu de Gênes, which is the blue of Genoa while denim originated in the French town of Nîmes, from which denim (de Nîmes) gets its name. Denim is made up of a mixture of different fabrics. It is essentially all cotton, but to get certain stretch in jeans, elastane or lycra will be added to the blend. The cotton can also be mixed with fibers like polyester, nylon, elasterell and spandex to produce different types of denim for different types of jeans.

Michelle Siwy on E! News from Siwy Denim on Vimeo.

E! were lucky enough to go to the jean factory of Siwy Denim and chat with the designer and founder, Michelle Siwy. She talks about the process of sanding, washing and drying and you get to see a pair of jeans go from its raw state to the finished state. It’s a great video and I love seeing these!

Image of 7 For All Mankind’s factory via GoRuck.com.

Jeans are made in many parts of the world, the top places being the United States, mainly Los Angeles, Italy, China, Turkey and Japan. Los Angeles is famous for its premium denim factories as is Italy. China and Turkey are famous for the everyday brands and Japan is known for its raw and selvedge denim, however different jeans can essentially be produced in many places. Some are even made in England, Portugal, France and all over the world.

Jeans are made in factories of various specialties. Premium denim, from the likes of brands such as Diesel, 7 For All Mankind, J Brand and Paige etc, are made in specific jeans factories which have workers trained in premium denim making and use a lot of special equipment to get the cuts, finishes, chain stitching and normal stitching perfect. Cheaper jeans can be made in the normal garment factories alongside other clothes as they don’t require a specific amount of detail. Premium jeans also go through their washing process in specific wash houses where they are hand sanded and creased, stone washed, coated in resin or wax and hand distressed etc. You can see a couple of videos of how jeans are made in the links below.

Click here to see premium jeans being made and click here to see regular jeans being made.

IRO has just launched their new E-Shop on their website. I found their clothing to be one of the hardest to hunt down and am so happy that they launched their own shop online. Everything is at my fingertips now. Another thing that is great about the new feature on the site is that it is for both the men’s and women’s lines. You can click here to check out the new online store now.

NSF has just announced that they have just signed Simon Miller as their creative director for their denim debut. This venture will also not disappoint the NSF lovers. They made sure that quality and amazing craftsmanship is still involved. The line features Japanese denim in six washes which you can see below.

With an amazing celebrity fan base like Zac Efron, Bradley Cooper, Chris Evans, Johnny Deep, Brad Pitt and Ryan Reynolds. I’m sure that these will be just as popular with their great fits.