I'd never ordered custom jeans before, although the service has been available for quite some time. I never felt that I had complete control over the fit, details, washes, etc., and that is very important to me.
Getwear, however, drew me in with its real-time, Photoshop-esque design interface, which lets you construct, distress, and embroider with your mouse and appraise the result on a lifelike mock up - much better than choosing miscellaneous "fading" from a menu list. On this front, Getwear does very well. Designing is easy and fun, and they have pretty much all the information you need there on the design page - a catwalk video, fit descriptions. I would have liked to know the fabric content when designing, however. This information is available on the link to your jeans if you decide to sell your design, but not on the design page.
It was also very easy to put my jeans up for sale (Getwear offers a portion of sales to you if your design is purchased). After designing, you give them your email address. They send you a confirmation link, you click it, and you're set up. Mine didn't work on the first try, but an email to the company fixed that very quickly.
In terms of production and shipping times, they were spot on in my case: a week to produce, and 3 days to ship. The only negative was that the Fedex had to be signed for, so my apartment manager was disturbed for the signature. Next time, I would ship to my office to avoid this.
And now... yak yak yak, get to the final product, right? Well, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. The jeans FIT, no gaping in the waist, nothing tight, perfect inseam measurement. The denim is thin - and don't mistake their "raw" wash for actual raw denim... this is not that heavy, scratchy stuff you'd find LA hipsters wearing unwashed for years on end - but the fabric is nice and dark, soft and not scratchy, and neatly constructed. HOWEVER, I am not their easiest customer.
I know that I have an unusually small rise by normal retail standards, so I specifically asked for a 7-inch rise. Hubs is also very picky about back pockets, so I gave them the below measurements (sans pictures - I took the ones below for my second try). The service rep got back to me quickly and asked for pictures of the jeans I wanted to mimic. I supplied the pictures and was notified when production started and when the jeans shipped.
The jeans, sadly, arrived with a 9 (!!) inch rise (is that really "low rise" on any planet?) and, while the top corners of the pockets were in the correct place, the bottoms of the pockets were angled out a lot, making my backside look really wide. I did not opt for fading or embroidery, as I wanted these jeans to be dressy for work, so I can't speak to those options.
As far as service goes, I emailed the company with my issues and got a reply the same day, asking a couple of followup questions - this is when I emailed the below pictures. I was pleased that there was no push back about either issue, and the rep said that they would accommodate me.
I can't say quite yet whether I'll be 100% happy with the jeans. I believe that, once you get all your desired measurements in, you can re-order and re-design your jeans using the same data - in that regard, it is worth it to work with the company to get the perfect fit - and it's all going to come down to that. If I can get a killer, flattering fit out of it all, for 1/2 the price of premium jeans, I'll be thrilled. So far, I'm a wide, hippy mess, but it ain't over 'till it's over.
