For the last 18 months, the folks at Levi Strauss & Co. studied women around the world, conducting thousands of interviews and looking at 60,000 body scans of women in 13 countries.

The company says the result -- besides confirmation that for women, jeans shopping ranks right up there with buying bras and bathing suits -- is a new global denim program that, by taking their curves into account, will provide nearly any woman a five-pocket pair of jeans that feels custom fit to her shape.

Called Curve ID, the line officially launches on Sept. 2 and consists of three fits: a slight curve (for the woman who finds that regular jeans "fit in the hips and thighs but are too tight in the waist"), a demi curve (if your jeans "usually fit in the waist but don't flatter the figure") and a bold curve (if jeans "fit in the hips and thighs, but gap in the back").

"The fits that we're launching with account for 80% of the women's body shapes in the world," boasted Levi's president Robert Hanson in a phone interview last week.

"And when we launch the fourth one -- our most extreme curve -- at the end of this year or early next year, then we'll have 96% of women covered."

You Nguyen, senior vice president of women's merchandising and design for the Levi's brand, explained that the fits are based on the differences between a woman's hip and seat measurements -- formulated from the body scans and information Levi's gathered over the last year and a half.

He declined to be any more specific than that, noting only that Levi store employees have been specially trained on what measurements to take, and that a digital fitting room to assist online shoppers was scheduled to go live at the Levi's website next week.

"That’s like our [recipe for] secret sauce that we don't share," Nguyen said. "The exact ratio is proprietary information." But Nguyen did offer up a few famous figures that might be appropriate for each fit.

"Now these are just my opinions since I don't actually have any of their measurements," he cautioned. "But off the top of my head, I'd say the bold curve would be someone like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez, a demi curve would be someone like Charlize Theron, and the slight curve would be Lucy Liu."

Hanson emphasized that Curve ID was not a plus-size program. "This is about shape, not size. Look at the photo [above] for example. All three of those women are wearing a size 27 [-inch waist], but each one is a different shape."