Blue Jeans Fit For `Connoisseurs' -- Levi's Custom-Fit Service Wants To Provide Ultimate Pair Of Pants

SAN FRANCISCO - For many people, searching for the perfect pair of jeans can be a lifelong quest.

Now Levi Strauss and Co. is offering a solution that combines computer technology with express mail and good old-fashioned measuring tape: made-to-measure jeans.

The custom-fit process, available at some Original Levi's outlets, begins with a customer trying on a pair of prototype jeans. Then a salesperson is told where they should be nipped and tucked.

The information is entered into a computer program that sends it to a factory in Mountain City, Tenn., where a personal pattern is printed and fabric is cut and sewn according to the customer's measurements. Within three weeks, the completed jeans are sent to the store or the buyer's home.

The San Francisco-based company said it designed the service for women, who are more inclined to complain about the fit of their jeans. Men also will be able to order custom jeans.

The service is aimed at two types of women: those who have body types that don't fit into the 170 existing styles and sizes, and those whom Levi's spokesman Sean Fitzgerald calls "jeans connoisseurs" and want the ultimate pair of pants.

The custom-fit jeans are available in New York City; Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio; Peabody, Mass.; and Toronto. Within about a year, Levi's hopes to offer them at dozens of outlets across the country, Fitzgerald said. He said women have flown to Cincinnati just to take advantage of the service.

One retail analyst predicted custom jeans will become a trend.

"Not every woman is shaped the way Levi's makes pants traditionally," said Walter Loeb of Loeb Associates in New York. "By custom fitting pants, it has a specific appeal to many women. This is a forerunner and a very exciting development, in my opinion."

Levi's custom jeans come in a variety of colors but are available only in the tapered leg with zip-fly style. Prices vary by store but generally are about $15 more expensive than the $48 retail price of regular jeans, Fitzgerald said.

Sung Park, the entrepreneur who designed Levi's custom-fit software, got the idea after going to a Hong Kong tailor three years ago and having a suit made to order.

When the clothes arrived in the mail, he thought to himself, "This is how you want to have it done."

He formed Custom Clothing Technology Corp. in Newton, Mass., and then approached Levi Strauss. He is talking with other companies about setting up similar operations.