I can provide a review as a casual user only. I'm not terribly hard on jeans because I sit behind a desk most days. The areas where my carhartts give out first are the hips right above the pockets and between the thighs and crotch. My size is 42x30 so that gives you an idea of how Im built. About 50 lbs overweight.
On average I would get about 1.5 -2 years out of a pair of loose fit carhartts. I stopped buying them when they stopped making the loose fit style.
I've worn the flannel lined ballroom relaxed fit jeans, the non-lined ballroom relaxed fit jeans, and the firehose flex relaxed fit jeans for less than six months. All of the ballroom jeans are heavier and thicker than the carhartts. They feel better made and seem to stand up better to frequent washing and wear. The firehose jeans are thinner...on par with carhartts or maybe a little lighter. But they are a joy to wear. The jeans actually stretch when you raise your knees or drop your ass down into a squat. I don't know how well they will hold up over time.
I would highly recommend going to duluth's website and signing up for emails. You will get emails. Lots and lots of emails. They have sales on lots of different things every month. Eventually they will have sales on jeans. Around christmas they will have 25-30% off on the jeans which will drop them down into the kinda sorta affordable range. You can also ask people to give you gift certificates to the store if they don't know what else to get for you over the holidays/birthdays etc.
