Undone by Stitching

One of the signs of getting older is developing a curmudgeonly disdain for change when it isn't strictly necessary. Part of this comes from the simple fact that by being around long enough, some things are inevitably going to change, and there's a certain percentage of those things that I will inevitably be unhappy about.

Levi's has done it to me again, meddling with something that didn't need changing. Years ago I stopped wearing their jeans because they elongated the stitching on the back pockets and I thought it looked bad. (A side benefit was that I got rid of a bunch of jeans that fit poorly and were unflattering.) Eventually the stitching was changed back to how it had looked previously, and I found that the basic 505 was the right style for me. I've been getting a pair every year or so, adding them to the rotation and getting rid of the oldest pair when it was no longer suitable for wear outside the house.

They haven't changed the fit, and they haven't changed the stitching—well, not the shape of it. But they have changed the color of it, at least on the "dark stonewash" color that I prefer. It wouldn't even be that bad, except that there are now two colors of stitching on this shade of the 505. The familiar brown-gold thread is still present, but on the pocket arcs and in a couple of other areas it's been changed to a lighter color, kind of tan or beige. If it were all that one color it might not bother me so much, but the stitching that holds the pockets to the pants is still the original color, so the lighter color is right next to it and it's impossible not to notice it. It looks terrible.

At this point in my life I'm not interested in again going through the trouble of finding another brand and style of jeans to wear. So now I have to go around to various stores that sell Levi's and see if any of them still happen to have older stock with the one-color stitching, or see if any of the other colors the jeans are offered in are an agreeable substitute.