“How do I look in black stretch?”

If you are a regular guy and not a fashion-obsessed one, and you decide it’s time for a pair of new Levi’s, get ready for some potential confusion.  Actually, even if you are among the clothes-concerned, prepare for perplexity.  A visit to the Levi’s website (or even the Macy’s one, which offers fewer choices but sufficient bewilderment) introduces you to a Kafkaesque, sartorial Babel where colors have names like “anodized anthracite” and distinctions seem to have no difference.  After reviewing the selection of Levi’s 511s on the company’s website, Susan Pantzaroff, Professor of Marketing at Northern Indiana Normal School and Business Institute, concluded:  “Levi’s seems to be employing a cutting edge marketing technique called ‘Confuse the Customer.’  It’s quite popular in the mattress industry.  But within the academic community, the jury is still out on whether it’s a good strategy.  We need to run more regressions on it.  But my first question to Levi’s would be, ‘Where’d you come up with a color called Shadow Bull Denim?’”  Continue reading →