The Theory of Jeans (aka The Inner Thigh Rip Phenomena)

One of the subjects that seems to be prevalent within my School of Business classes this term is the concern that free market capitalism is collapsing and is potentially failing to be a viable system.  I disagree based on the very presupposition within this idea that what we are currently utilizing is actually free market capitalism.  The basic idea behind a free market is that you have a series of competitors within the market who diligently compete with each other in order to produce products that are preferred by the consumers within the marketplace based on a balance of quality and price.  If our existing market is not actually free, than the normal processes that would lead to the effectiveness of free market capitalism through competition and demand, would not be in play at all.  To prove that what we have in existence is not a functioning free market, I introduce to you the Theory of Jeans.

This may be hard to believe for some but once upon a time, jeans used to live.  In fact, jeans could live for a very long time.  I once owned a pair of Levis that lasted, intact, for 10 years.  If the tearing of the fabric of jeans is equated to the death of  said jeans, then the frequent cause of death was a wearing out and tearing of the knees of the jeans.  Flash forward to today and one finds, except in the case of younger children, that the new most frequent cause of death for jeans would be ripping along the inner thigh--not the knees where one would expect the greatest amount of wear and tear on the structure of the jeans.  This phenomena of tearing along the inner thigh, as some would think, is not directly related to the increase of overall obesity.  As peculiar as it sounds, I have polled a variety of people of all weight classes and found that the problem of inner thigh ripping exists within each group from the thinnest to the widest.  The diversity of weight among those queried precludes that weight is actually the culprit of this phenomena among adult wearers though it is necessary to observe that this phenomena does not occur in younger children whose jeans still rip out chiefly in the knees. 

One could explain that the reason why the knees of the jeans were still the first to wear and tear for children is because they are more active and eventually the inner thighs would rip.  Not true.  With my daughter as a test subject, I did not throw out any pairs of jeans that had ripped at the knee.  Yes, my daughter actually went to school with holes in the knees of her jeans.  Some of these jeans she has been able to wear for the last two years.  None of them have ripped at the inner thigh.  Although this information would seem to indicate that my first assumption that weight is not a factor is untrue, I disagree.  If anything, the lack of inner thigh ripping in children's jeans indicates that there is a structural flaw in today's jeans. 

Jeans, especially tight jeans, are subject to a variety of stresses and enforcements.   Hems and stitching both can act as a reinforcement, much like the studs within our homes and as an area of stress when they are at their greatest distance from each other.   Anyone who lives in an earthquake prone area knows that the areas where one should escape to during an earthquake are the smallest of rooms.  The reason being for this is that these contain the highest number of studs in the smallest amount of area and are, thereby, the most reinforced rooms of a home.  If we are to compare an adult pair of jeans to a child's pair of jeans in terms of being "earthquake proof", then the child's pair of jeans is, in effect, the "smallest room in the house" as they have more reinforcement due to the closeness of the studs (hems).  This allows that the primary cause of death for children's jeans continuing to be the old norm of tearing at the knees but with a shorter lifespan. 

Nor is this phenomena brand specific.  Tearing at the inner thigh has been reported within a wide diversity of brands from Levis, Billabong, Old Navy, H&M, and even all the way up to more expensive brand offerings from Nordstroms, a department store whose very name tends to conjure up ideas of quality goods.  If it is not brand specific and if it is not weight specific, then what is the culprit?  One could suggest that it is the actual manufacturer of the jeans themselves.  In today's globalized economy, one frequently finds that a large diversity of brands are actually being manufactured, sometimes alongside, other brands within the same exact factory.  A prime example of this would be the factories that manufacture Nike, New Balance, and Adidas shoes--sometimes at the same time.  This is most likely to be true for the manufacturers of the various brands of jeans.  A single factory may be producing Levi's alongside jeans for Old Navy and could, thereby, be producing the same structural flaw within every pair of jeans on the market through the hemming.  This isn't possible, however, as no single factory could possibly output all the jeans currently on the market. Furthermore, this premise is not supported by what we have already ascertained about weight in regards to blue jeans.  Children's jeans show more reinforcement than what exists in adult jeans.  This points to a flaw within the very fabric of the jeans.

Instead of looking for a solitary manufacturer of multiple brands of jeans, we should be looking for evidence that a solitary manufacturer of the fabric for this variety of jean brands exists.  Looking at today's world, even something as tiny and seemingly insignificant as bacteria is patented.  One of my professors told a story in class one day about how the company she worked for came up with an idea of punching circular holes into packing material to allow better airflow.  Pleased with their innovative solution, they gleefully sent things out with these circular holes punched into them until one day they were served with a cease and desist and an order to pay.  Apparently, someone had patented the punching of circular holes into the same material.  Instead of paying to continue to punch circular holes, they began punching squares instead into the material. 

As hilarious as this may seem, this is an example of the level of patenting that we are at in this day and age.  Something as minute as a subtle change in percentage of lycra to cotton is most likely patented.   Therefore, the fabric for a pair of jeans that is 90% cotton and 10% lycra probably comes from one single manufacturer who holds the patent for that particular ratio.  The same manufacturer of fabric probably holds patents for jean fabrics consisting of variable ratios around this figure as precise consistency in the ratio should never be expected.  One day, it could be 89% to 11%.  The next, it could be 91% to 9%.  The actual output of the manufacturing process very rarely matches the target goal and, therefore, patenting the expected variability is most likely what occurs to protect the company from litigation by other fabric manufacturers.

What does this mean?  Well, it means that a diverse multitude of brands of jeans are being manufactured not necessarily by the same company but it is very likely that a single jean fabric manufacturer is manufacturing all the fabric for a wide variety of brands of jeans.  Ten years ago, my jeans weren't ripping in the thighs.  This is, instead, a more recent phenomena and the source for it is undeniably the constrictive effect of the recession.  As the various brands are being faced with less consumer spending, they have most likely opted to reduce the manufacturing costs to produce their product. The fact that this is occurring in a wide variety of brands and at various supposed quality levels, indicates that this has been the response for perhaps all jean manufacturers.  In this case, it is likely that the fabric manufacturer whose product is the cheapest is the one that is providing the fabric for all as quality is being forsaken due to the reduced purchasing.  One company becomes the victor of free market capitalism due to these constrictive effects of recession.  Or, in more simplified terms, someone won the competition.

 The potential of a single dominant provider of a good is not conducive to the idea of a free market.  Instead, it is the very anti-thesis of the idea behind the free market system.  A free market system is considered to be effective where competition among producers of a good or service exists to provide a good balance between quality and price.  What we have is the sacrifice of quality within the very fabric of our free market system for the sake of price.  Are the manufacturers of the various brands of jeans to blame?  No, I don't think so.  They are doing whatever they can to survive in a prolonged recession.  Nor is the dominant provider of the fabric to blame.  If anything is to blame, it has been the seeming inability of our global economies to rebound to allow a regeneration of competition.  As time passes, more companies fail.  As more companies fail, the number of competitors decline as do the number of consumers.  We are not operating in a free market capitalist system any longer but, instead, on a self feeding mechanism of market constriction and decline.  No wonder it's failing.