Lee Archives, the equivalent of Levi’s Vintage

Those Lee Archives jeans are made in Japan by Edwin under licence from Lee (or the global corporation [VF?] who owns Lee). The workers who made them may or may not be members of a trade union in Japan. The tag is reproduced for historical accuracy.

Although they’re sanforized, there will still likely be some shrinkage, more in the leg length than the waist.

You’ll have a hard time finding them for sale outside of Japan and some Japanese retailers (including Edwin I think) will not sell directly to international customers so you may need to use a Japanese proxy to buy them on your behalf and send them on to you for a fee.

Warehouse and Real McCoys have both made Lee repros in the past, in fact Warehouse made these (non-Lee branded) Lot 1002 last year. They’re for sale on the Warehouse website, directly to international customers. TCB make their own brand Lee repros too.

There were many shops that sold Lee Archives 10 years ago - I bought 2 pairs of Edwin-made 1930s 101B in the UK in 2011 but this is not likely to be relevant a decade on.