I wear both stretchy jeans, and actual denim. I don't like wearing anything that isn't basically jeans.
The stretch ones are like, the black or acid washed painted on looking jeans. They are comfortable and basically jeans, but they wear out really fast. Like within a year, you can see my ass, or my knee comes blasting through.
The denim jeans I wear come from Japan, because for SOME REASON, I can't find waist 28 length 36 in America anymore unless I buy Wrangler's doofy cowboy rodeo jeans.
They are boot cut. I don't wear boots, so it's really weird to wear them. They have a zipper. I hate those.
Levi stopped making the button fly jeans that fit me because "they don't sell well". Lee and shit basically fell apart too.
AKA: "Sorry dude, America is fat."
So, I buy sort of expensive denim jeans from a Japanese company. They're those hand-loom ones with the selvedge(?) stitch that all the hipster pieces of shit masturbate to.
I just buy them because they sell 18 and 20oz denim in my waist size and inseam, and it's button fly.
Japan can make clothes for my lanky ass, but America can't. I guess I am fortunate that Japanese people like to cuff the flying f*ck out of their jeans. They basically cuff inseam 36 jeans to be like inseam 12, lol.
and they last >1 year. The wranglers didn't even do that.
assuming you want to pay like 200$ for a pair of jeans, lol. There's a bunch of companies that do this kind of thing in Japan, and places in Europe.
It's kinda worth it when you compare functionality/durability/cost.
It's sad, America's denim quality took a giant shit.