Jeans may be the most widely worn pants in the world, which makes choosing the right pair surprisingly daunting. With countless brands offering their own take on the five-pocket staple in an endless array of cuts, washes, and price points, even seasoned denim enthusiasts can feel overwhelmed. To cut through the noise, we’ve rounded up 25 brands that consistently deliver on fit, fabric, and staying power. Presented in alphabetical order, these are the names that keep us coming back for more.
3sixteen
3sixteen is a New York City label that lives and breathes denim, pouring extraordinary effort into its wares. Its specialty jeans are made with custom fabrics from the legendary Kuroki Mills in Okayama, Japan, a name worth knowing as your collection grows from your sixth pair to your sixtieth.
A.P.C.
For many menswear enthusiasts, A.P.C. served as a gateway not only into raw denim but into tailored clothing as a whole. The Parisian label’s minimalist approach and high-quality fabrics made its unlogoed jeans a favorite in the late 2000s, when fashion was moving past logomania. It continues to produce sleek jeans and denim products better than most.
Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch may be known for cargo shorts and polos, but its recent reboot has turned it into a destination for all sorts of menswear, including jeans. The denim is dense, hefty, and substantial, especially when you choose the 100 percent cotton options, which leave many mall brands behind. Unlike some competitors, though, Abercrombie doesn’t offer higher-end fabrics like Japanese denim.
Acne Studios
Acne Studios is now recognized for boundary-pushing fashion, but the Stockholm brand actually started as a film studio in the 1990s. When it began producing a small run of jeans for friends and family, the brand discovered its calling. Acne has a finger on the pulse, offering beautiful washes, full cuts, and surprising details like detachable denim belts.
Buck Mason
Buck Mason seems to have the Midas touch. This modern menswear label has been on a generational run akin to Ralph Lauren in its heyday, and denim is one of its standout categories. Its range of silhouettes leans classic, from tasteful slims to straight legs to a 1960s inspired fit with a higher rise, relaxed leg, and subtle taper. The denim itself is top tier Japanese material from respected mills, and many pairs are produced in the States with an array of vintage details that true denim nerds will appreciate. The prices are higher than some of the names above, but the quality justifies the jump.
Diesel
If you want high-quality denim with all the subtlety of an airhorn, Diesel is your brand. The Italian label hasn’t met a pair of jeans it can’t warp, wash, and bedazzle into a maximalist statement. Under creative director Glenn Martens, Diesel’s denim innovations have helped revive the brand’s fashion status, with jeans regularly selling out.
Gap
Gap’s iconic khakis commercials in the late 1990s turned the mall brand into a go-to for tan chinos, but denim is in its blood. It continues to produce solid jeans at fair prices, with a few more upscale selvedge options in the mix. We’ve been impressed with the 1990s loose fit jeans and the washes, which avoid the aggressively fake whiskering that plagues many other brands. Gap’s range of cuts is broad, though skinny jeans are less common these days.
Glenn’s Denim
Glenn Liburd is a true denim legend, having spent decades in the industry working with the Big Three and a stint at Savile Row. His encyclopedic knowledge has coalesced into Glenn’s Denim, which is truly top tier. Custom American-made selvedge denim with masterful construction, at a surprisingly accessible price point? Yes, yes, and yes.
Kapital
Between bonkers knitwear, threadbare sashiko jackets, and woven puffer vests, Kapital fuses chaos and craft into offbeat fun that appeals to rock stars and NBA players. The denim stands out for its insane level of detail and handwork, often hidden behind jaw-dropping ideas. Even on a patch-encrusted pair that would make a Boy Scout envious, the intricate chainstitch embroidery, hand-done details, and top-notch fabric show that quality never takes a back seat to concept.
Keruk
No machines, just two pairs of hands, needles, and thread. That’s all Keruk needs to make a pair of jeans. It’s extremely rare to find a garment made without a sewing machine, which makes these the ultimate grail for denim enthusiasts.
Lee
Lee was one of the early denim pioneers, the first to use a zipper fly, and the inventor of overalls. Today, the brand tends to sit on the budget side of the spectrum, with fits and washes that skew dad-like. However, Lee’s denim continues to deliver on its legacy of hard-wearing, good-value jeans. That said, Lee is a little sleepy by comparison. But Lee has recently turned its attention to products that harken back to its workwear roots: chore coats, raw denim, and burly canvas pants. The Lee 101 line takes things further with board stiff Japanese denim and archival patterns that resurrect some of the brand’s most iconic products.
Levi’s
Leaving Levi’s off this list would be like omitting Michael Jordan from the Hall of Fame. Levi’s isn’t just the most famous jeans brand on the planet; it’s the one that invented jeans back in 1873. After all these years, it’s still the yardstick by which all other jeans are measured. The straight legged 501 remains iconic, available in endless fits and rinses. The 505 offers a roomier thigh, a bit of taper, and a zip fly instead of the 501’s button fly. The granddaddy of denim has every fit you can imagine and every wash the human eye can perceive, for perhaps the best value, too. While countless brands make a $60 jean just fine, very few can match Levi’s quality.
Levi’s Vintage Clothing
Levi’s Vintage Clothing is the reproduction arm of Levi’s, delivering strict, stitch for stitch recreations of styles from the brand’s archive. That includes hyper accurate raw denim 501s from, say, 1944, as well as facsimiles of thrashed and shredded jeans purchased at high profile auctions, complete with real deal holes and patches reproduced from an actual pair of very rare vintage jeans. This sublabel is for the geeks and true heads, so don’t expect any innovation. If you like the old school look or just the old school quality and don’t mind paying a beefy price, LVC is where it’s at.
OrSlow
Among Japanese brands influenced by, or outright reproducing, period correct work jackets and 1950s era dungarees, OrSlow stands out as one of the most straightforward and accessible. The brand doesn’t so much revive ultra obscure references as recreate jeans ripped straight from the kind of movie scenes that fill menswear inspiration boards. From mid century Ivy inflected slim straights to classic 501 style straight leg five pockets with a beautiful redline selvedge detail, OrSlow plays the hits just the way you want them.
Our Legacy
Our Legacy’s eye catching designs, from the dialed in Swedes who cultivate a vibe somewhere between punk and sleazy, have earned the label legions of devoted followers. The Camion boots are a hit with fashion types, but the real innovation is in the jeans department: think trompe l’oeil denim prints, slashed panels, and reflective trims. The Third Cut jeans are perhaps the brand’s most popular, featuring a mid high rise and a relaxed straight leg. Most of the denim is high end Italian, and sometimes Japanese, with a unique yet subtle, eye catching wash.
Paul Kruize
Paul Kruize’s jeans are bespoke, and the not insignificant price you pay comes back in details you’ll see and feel. While most brands use a range of machines to make a single pair of five pocket jeans, Kruize operates a single machine to produce his product. He stitches the buttonholes by hand and ensures every seam is felled, meaning it’s covered on the inside, which takes more work. The result is jeans as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside. Given the bespoke nature, expect a very long and involved process, not a quick fix. Be prepared to develop a relationship with the designer and savor the experience.
Rick Owens
Rick Owens’ dark, brooding designs are instantly recognizable, but his wild takes on jeans manage to steal the show. To be clear, they range from very expensive to very, very, very expensive. Of the countless designer brands taking a slice of the blue jeans pie, Owens is one of the few who actually delivers on quality, using heavy duty Japanese denim to create his mind bending pieces. Rick’s jeans aren’t for the faint of heart, and they’re really made for those who want to be part of his inimitable universe. That said, his Geth jeans are maybe his most approachable and a good stepping stone to his more avant garde offerings.
RRL
Ralph Lauren’s heritage Americana inspired RRL sub label is known as the triple distilled essence of the menswear legend’s personal cowboy flavored aesthetic. Where Polo exists for the masses, RRL dives headlong into obscure references pulled from the company’s bottomless vintage library. Witness the filled belt loops, hidden rivets, and throwback style waistbands. And in the realest nod to modern denim reality, most of RRL’s jeans are made in the U.S. using Japanese selvedge denim.
Samurai
Samurai’s aesthetic is that of a Japanese biker blasting American rock ‘n’ roll. In keeping with its love of extremes, the brand makes some of the heaviest jeans around, including a truly bonkers 21 oz. denim. That’s nearly twice as heavy as your average pair of Levi’s, making Samurai’s denim both a physical challenge and a badge of honor among denim cognoscenti.
Studio D’Artisan
Gather ’round for a quick history lesson. Studio D’Artisan is one of the famed Osaka 5, the group name for five Japanese denim brands launched in the early 1990s that were all dedicated to reproducing vintage Levi’s with painstaking accuracy. The others are Evisu, Denime, Warehouse, and Full Count. While the other four expanded their missions, Studio D’Artisan remains arguably the most revered because it hasn’t wavered an inch. It produces the same grail denim season after season, laser focused on craft, particularly by sourcing top shelf materials like the super rare Suvin gold cotton.
Supreme
The secret of Supreme is that it’s often the brand’s less hyped pieces that deserve your attention, and its jeans may be the ultimate proof. Look past the wild options with insane graphics splashed all over, and you’ll realize that Supreme’s standard, impeccably fitting jeans use some very good mid weight selvedge denim that’s built to take more than a few nasty spills on a skateboard. The trouble is you’ll have to navigate Supreme’s notoriously fickle website, where product pages are as ephemeral as its hyped up IRL drops. So be prepared to set a timer for drop day or be willing to pay some kid to wait in the queue for you.
Tender
Tender’s approach to denim doesn’t look like most jeans you’ve ever seen. The U.K. based brand focuses on clothes inspired by turn of the century rail worn designs, often using natural dyes, indigo alternatives, and unique pattern cutting to produce some of the most delightfully off beat, and often heaviest, jeans you’re likely to see.
The Real McCoy’s
The Real McCoy’s aims to create some of the most accurate vintage reproductions around, and it succeeds phenomenally. One example of the brand’s obsession: its denim is woven from scratch on specific vintage looms to get the right tension and texture, making it nearly indistinguishable from genuinely vintage jeans. As prolific as they are, it’s still difficult to get your hands on a pair, even with a handful of Stateside retailers. So if you see a pair in your size, don’t give it a second thought, unless you don’t mind going to Japan to track down a pair in store.
Uniqlo
Uniqlo has mastered the affordability to style matrix better than any other brand in its category, and it excels at knitwear, outerwear, button ups, and, of course, denim. The mega retailer is a consistent go to for anyone looking to cop their first pair of raw jeans. Just $50 for Japanese milled selvedge? Still can’t beat it. With such a low price ceiling, however, many of Uniqlo’s other denim options have better fit and finishing than fabric. So if you’re looking to score some Christophe Lemaire designed jeans for less, this is the place to get them, even if the denim itself won’t last that long.
Wrangler
As the name suggests, Wrangler is geared toward cowboys, and that’s not just southern fried fashion branding. Wrangler has long been the official jean of professional rodeo competitors, and at one point even claimed to make the heaviest denim in the world, 14 ounces, if you’re wondering. The brand still lists denim weights on its website, a sign that it speaks the language of good jeans, and has since expanded into even hardier cuts. Though most of its jeans come with washes and distressing, Wrangler is one of the few brands that offers real raw denim at such a low price. If you’re after a good pair of bootcut jeans with a classic high rise, you couldn’t do much better than Wrangler’s iconic Cowboy Cut jeans. Just slap on a pair of slick cowboy boots and a slim white tee and you’re a Glenn Powell lookalike, complimentary.
From workwear heritage to high fashion, these 25 brands showcase the remarkable range of modern denim. Whether you’re chasing a budget friendly first pair or a grail level investment, this list covers the spectrum.
