3/5/2023 0 Comments Mechanic jumpsuit![]() A 1920s photograph shows somber-looking white men all wearing button-down coats over ties and work apparel standing in front of that first building. Williamson, were launching a brand that stemmed from the former United States Overall Company of Texas. Drakeīack then, founders and cousins E.E. Though Dickies continues to crank out workaday uniforms for the masses (in some cases, actual uniforms for schoolchildren and medical scrubs, in addition to its iconic overalls, trousers, and Eisenhower jackets), it’s also safe to say Dickies doesn’t quite make clothing the way it did in 1922. ![]() Richardson has worked at Dickies for fifty years, half of the company’s history, starting as an assistant stylist and eventually becoming chief archivist, cataloging a century of fashion. Gen Z TikTokers share viral “hauls” of Dickies Original 874 Work Pants (retail price: $29.99), waistbands folded over as is currently the style among that set, as if they were discovering the brand anew. At the Emmys in September, actor Pete Davidson appeared on stage dressed head to toe in the brand’s pieces. These diverse groups have embraced Dickies over the past century, perhaps drawn to the humble blank slate offered up by its nondescript polyester/cotton button-down shirts and work pants, with no trace of pretension in their design of clean lines and tiny red, blue, and yellow logo patches with the iconic horseshoe. With its decidedly proletarian roots, Dickies has quietly (and unintentionally) threaded an unlikely alliance through the decades, attracting the loyalty of mechanics, college students, rappers like Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, punks, Latino youth in West Texas, West Coast skateboarders, and international fashionistas-not to mention a whole lot of grandfathers. ![]() These items, more than the ones in pristine condition, seem to tell stories not only of their owners but of a hardscrabble work ethic born of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and of this Texas apparel company itself, now celebrating one hundred years in business. On the surrounding walls hang overalls, leisure suits, and the errant pair of butterfly quilt–stitched trousers that look like they got lost on their way from a seventies disco.īut my eye continues to be drawn to the worn-out, beat-up, mended, and re-mended clothing that has found its way here. I’m standing in a small storage room turned museum in Dickies’ Fort Worth headquarters, a humble brick building on West Vickery Boulevard on the city’s west side. ![]() In today’s fast-fashion culture, a mended jacket feels like an artifact from another time. ![]()
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