These Are the Jeans My Husband and I Are Both Obsessed With

Updated on 5/13/2016 at 10:30 AM

Browsing through racks of denim recently raised the question, "When did good jeans become a luxury?" I love fashion, but shelling out $200 for jeans makes a dent. I also wondered on the flipside how my husband was able to find a pair of quality jeans with a great fit at a fraction of the price I could. Turns out, he had already discovered Mott & Bow.

Founder and CEO Alejandro Chahin launched the brand with men's denim in 2014 with one clear mission: delivering premium denim at a fair cost. To be clear, that's $96 to $128 for each pair of individually handcrafted denim jeans made in Chahin's own Honduras-based facility.

See, Alejandro knows the industry. He grew up spending time in his family's denim manufacturing business, first counting buttons, then fabric sourcing and hand-creating washes later as a teen. He took everything he learned at home to business school at NYU; from there, he studied consumer demands, and quickly found a gap in the marketplace:

"The funny thing is that aside from liking to distress jeans in our factory as a kid, for the longest time I thought I wanted to do something as far removed from apparel as possible. It wasn't until much later in life when I realized there was a real consumer need for something like Mott & Bow that I decided to start the brand. I believe you should be able to get high-quality products without overpaying, and I wanted to bring that to the denim market. Designer quality doesn't have to come with a price point to match," Alejandro told us.

Now, he's expanding with an equally innovative denim collection for women, which includes five cuts and a range of six washes (sizes 24 in.–32 in.), at the same fair cost.

While I loved the fit on my husband, I wondered about the new women's cuts. Happily, after trying both the high-rise skinny and the slim boyfriend cut, I can tell you that the fit is spot on and runs true to size with just the right amount of stretch. Still, if you're worried about sizing, Mott & Bow offers a complimentary home try-on program, so they'll send you an additional pair in another size at no cost. Just send it back with the return label provided when you're done (easy, right?!). And, if you're wondering where to start, Alejandro has a couple of suggestions for you, too. His favorite style for women is a tie "between the Bond black (the soft feel and stay-black characteristic) and the Orchard dark gray (the look and feel are unmatchable). For men, it's between the Mosco dark blue and the Ludlow [in] light/medium blue."

If the emphasis on customer experience and denim quality sounds too good to be true, consider the brains behind the operation. With his expertise, Alejandro has been able to take control of the entire process and pass along savings to the consumer, all while using the same fabrics and technologies you'll find in designer denim. As he explains, "We are committed to delivering phenomenal denim and a positive shopping experience for our customers, and changing the way people think about premium denim."

Read on for a glimpse of the collection. It may very well change the way you shop for jeans, too.