What do Levi's Fit Numbers Mean?
I don’t know about you, but I feel confused when I walk into a Levi’s store. I’m assaulted by stacks of jeans labeled by “fit numbers”; such as 511, 501, 710, or 311.
One of the clerks at my Levi’s store told me that each number helps you know what type of jean you’re buying: high-rise, low-rise, slim leg, athletic thighs, you name it. It didn’t help.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t tell the difference between a Levi’s 510 and a Levi’s 511 or what Levi’s fit numbers mean.
At least, that’s how I felt a few months back.
Over the past several months, I personally measured over a thousand jeans from Levi’s to decode the difference between Levi’s fit numbers. In the process, I discovered what Levi’s fit numbers actually mean, and what three things make each fit number unique.
What I learned is that there isn’t an exact science behind Levi’s numerology. Instead, Levi’s numbers are more of a guideline about how each pair of jeans will fit.
If you had to guess what the numbers on your Levi’s jeans meant, here’s what I’d tell you:
The first number tells you how the pants are designed around your seat, that is your hips and butt.
The second number tells you how high the pants are supposed to sit on your waist. The bigger the number the higher the pants rise on your waist.
The third number tells you how wide or narrow the pant leg is.
Like I said, Levi’s breaks these rules of thumb sometimes. Scroll to read the full story or check out our latest post that compares the differences between every single Levi’s jean we’ve measured.
What are Levi's Fit Numbers?
You’ve probably seen Levi’s 501 or Levi’s 721 in stores before. Those three numbers are “fit numbers”. Levi’s labels most of their jeans with fit numbers.
After personally measuring thousands of pairs of Levi’s jeans, here’s what I learned. There isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” meaning behind Levi’s numerology.
The main purpose behind Levi’s fit numbers is actually quite simple. The numbers help you know which jeans to buy again when your Levi’s wear out. Nothing more!
Say you bought a pair of Levi’s 511 Slim Fit jeans one year and loved how they fit. You know when you walk into a store the next year that you’ll want to buy the 511’s again. If Levi’s gave their pants some complicated name, like some brands do, chances are you’d forget what you bought and be back to square one trying to find your fit again.
There’s one big problem with the fit numbers though: they’re confusing!
Even after measuring Levi’s jeans for months, it still took me a while to sort out which numbers meant something and which didn’t.
What I learned is that the fit numbers are tricky: depending on which fit numbers you’re looking at, and whether you’re buying men’s or women’s pants, some numbers mean something and others don’t.
Whether all the numbers mean something or not, there are three things that make each fit number unique.
What Makes Each Fit Number Different?
Three ingredients make each fit number different from one another: seat, rise, and leg cut. If you know all three for a pair of pants, you know exactly how it should fit.
Seat
The “pants seat” is the area around your butt..that is, the part of your body that sits on a real-life seat.
The first number in Levi’s fit number tells you which “seat family” the jeans belong to. That’s the “5” in “501”, for example. I know what you’re thinking: what’s a seat family?
The seat family is how the butt area on a pair of pants is shaped. Think of it this way: no two people have butts that are the same shape. The same goes for a pair of pants.
That means that any jean that starts with a “5” from Levi’s has a similarly shaped butt, and it is shaped differently from Levi’s that start with a “7” or a “3”. Most 5-series jeans are men’s jeans. All 7-series and 3-series jeans are women’s jeans.
What a seat family doesn’t tell you is how much “ease” there is around the butt. All that ease means is how much wiggle room there is around the butt. The more ease, the baggier the butt area.
For example, the Levi’s 569 Relaxed Fit jeans are super baggy around the butt, even though they belong to the same “seat family” as the Levi’s 510’s Skinny Fit jeans.
Rise
Rise is a fancy term for where the waistband sits on your belly. The higher the rise, the higher up the waistband sits.
There are five main types of pant rises you’ll find in stores:
Ultra High Rise: the pants go all the way up to your natural waist (where your upper body creases when you bend over)
High Rise: the pants sit around your belly button
Mid Rise: the pants sit somewhere above your hip bone and below your belly button
Low Rise: the pants sit above, but close to, your hip bone
Ultra Low Rise: the pants sit on your hip bone
This is where Levi's numbers get confusing. Depending on the seat family, the Levi’s numbers may or may not tell you about the rise. Why Levi’s did this, I don’t know.
For the 5-series pants (501, 502, 511, etc), the fit number doesn’t tell you anything about the rise.
For the 3-series and 7-series pants, there is a formula that tells you how high waisted or low waisted the pants are meant to be. Look at the second number, like the “2” in “720”. That number secretly tells you what the rise is:
If the second number is a 0, the pants are low rise
If the second number is a 1, the pants are mid rise
If the second number is a 2, the pants are high rise
Leg Cut
The leg cut on a pair of pants tells you how the pants fit from the thigh down to the leg opening. Ever seen a pair of Levi’s described as slim cut, tapered fit, athletic fit, or straight cut? That is describing how the jeans are cut through the leg.
Three pant measurements go into the leg cut: the thigh, the knee, and the leg opening.
Levi’s fit numbers sometimes give you an idea of how big the leg opening is. The fit numbers don’t tell you anything about the knee or thigh, however.
Just like with pant rise, Levi’s 5-series fit numbers don’t tell you how big the leg opening is.
On the other hand, there is a clear formula for the 3-series and 7-series jeans. Look at the third number, like the “0” in “720”. That number tells you how big the leg opening is:
If the third number is a 0, the pant leg is super skinny cut. Super skinny pants hug your legs all the way from your thighs down to your ankle.
If the third number is a 1, the pant leg is skinny cut. Skinny pants hug your legs around the thigh and knee, but give a little bit more room around your ankle than super skinny pants do.
If the third number is a 2, the pant leg is slim cut. Slim means there’s a little bit of room around the knees, and more room in the leg opening. Don’t confuse this with slim fit: the seat on the 7-series and 3-series jeans is always skinny, even if the leg is labelled slim.
If the third number is a 3, the pant leg is slim straight cut. It’s somewhere between a slim and straight cut. What’s a straight cut leg?
If the third number is a 4, the pant leg is straight cut. Straight cut pants have a knee that’s about as big as the leg opening. Usually, there’s more room around the thighs too.
If the third number is a 5, the pant leg is bootcut. Bootcut means the leg opening is bigger than the knee, creating a flared look.
