They’ll Try To Fit You In

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They’ll Try To Fit You In
From left

In Los Angeles, where denim reigns, custom-made jeans are nothing new. But few outlets that hand-fit jeans attempt to do so exclusively. Newcomer Den.m Bar, however, is trying to do exactly that.

Co-founders Derek Yip, Steve Chiang and Richard Wang opened the downtown L.A. shop this month, selling only made-to-measure jeans.

Den.m has stopped taking walk-in clients and now works by appointment only to give the shop’s two tailors time to catch up.

Wang said he and his partners have already discovered that making jeans individually takes longer than they counted on.

“It is really labor intensive,” he said. “Much more than we thought it would be.”

Den.m offers three jean styles for men and one for women. But they should fit well, since 10 measurements are taken. The jeans start at $229 and can cost as much as $350, depending on options such as fabric, thread color, buttons and pocket stitching.

The jeans are sewn in-house in seven to 10 business days. Den.m recommends customers come back for a final fitting and adjustments.

Karl Thoennessen, owner of Rogue Territory in Atwater Village, also makes custom-fit jeans, but only on occasion. He works with customers to create a pattern from scratch. New customers pay $1,200 for two pairs, then can buy remakes of the same pattern for $450 each. But even at those prices, Thoennessen said he doesn’t focus on making custom-fit jeans because the work is too labor intensive.

“It’s not sustainable,” he said.

Wang said Den.m is making a small profit now but prices are likely to go up.

“We’re trying to build a clientele base. We’ll probably increase the price over the next year or so,” he said.

Stronghold, a store in Venice, sells custom-fit jeans that retail for between $295 and $700, but the store sells other clothing, too.

Key Closet, a company the Business Journal featured in 2008, used to make custom jeans laden with Swarovski crystals and diamonds. They cost a whopping $10,000. The company has since gone out of business.

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