My Jeans are as Worn as my Patience: An Open Letter to Uniqlo,

Dear Uniqlo

In the blustery end of the month of February I came into your store and purchased a pair of jeans. Within two months those jeans became worn to the point of disuse. Funny that your jeans, touted for their incomprable durability and their quality, should wear so easily. My bike is broken so I do not ride it. My disposition on the metro is to stand. I walk a fair amount, but only slightly more than average. So then why is it that these jeans, “made with attention to every detail” as it claims on your own website, should fail me after only two months? You purportedly “exhaustively pursure the highest possible standards in fit and finish.” Perhaps somewhere in those standards you failed to add “last longer than two months with average wear.” It’s a shame, really, that a clothing store with such commanding assurance of quality should create and sell a product with such low dependability. Also a shame that when I went into the store in which I purchased the jeans, nobody was willing to help or honor an exchange. I didn’t need my money back, just new jeans. Typically, and studies have proven, jeans will last anywhere from 8 months to 5 years! Imagine that! So you mean to tell me that your “considerably more durable” (and I’m just quoting you guys, here) jeans last 1/4th of the suggested life-span of the lowest quality jeans? I reiterate, for shame. Your store supervisor told me that “if everyone came back with jeans that were worn out, Uniqlo would be out of business.” On the contrary, I believe that reputation is one of the more integral elements of corporate survival, especially considering that Uniqlo is just now being introduced to the American market. Reputation, in this case, will make or break you. So to have your allegedly wonderful and durable jeans would, indeed, build to quite a wonderful reputation. However, to decree your jeans as being of a superior quality and then have these jeans fall apart in a matter of months, well, that doesn’t build any reputation whatsoever. 

I’m not a man who is generally quick to anger, but I am a man of principle. Here, I believe that principles have been ignored, that I have been lied to by your company and then even further betrayed. I am not asking for much, just for some new, decently functioning pants. So, if there is any way we can work out some kind of trade off for these prematurely battered jeans of mine for a brand new pair, well, it is more of an expectation than an appreciation at this point.

Your disheartened albeit loyal customer,