Product Level 301 Redirects Best Practice

[Bucktown]

When creating a 301 mapping file for product pages, what is best practice
for which version of the URL to redirect to? Base directory or one
subdirectory/category path.

Example Old URL:

www.example.com/clothing/pants/blue-pants-123

Which of the following should be the new target URL:

www.example.com/apparel/pants/blue-pants-123

www.example.com/apparel/blue-apparel/blue-pants-123

www.example.com/apparel/collections/spring-collection/blue-pants-123

www.example.com/blue-pants-123

This is assuming the canonical tag will be www.example.com/blue-pants-123.

Also, if www.example.com/blue-pants-123 cannot be reached via site
navigation would it be detrimental to make that the target URL if Google
cannot crawl that naturally?

Thanks

[Bucktown]

Yes, that's my understanding as well.

I guess my concern was directing all SEO Equity (through 301s and canonical tags) to a page that can't be found through the natural navigation of the website. Which I understand is something Google pays attention to when crawling a site.

Thanks

[MichaelYork]

I'm not sure I'm 100% clear on your desired outcome based on the question. It stands to reason that if you are using the canonical on www.example.com/blue-pants-123. then you would also make any 301 redirects from old sites to that directly also as it is the one you appear to be trying to rank, why else otherwise would you have the canonical tag for it?