Dockers Chinos – A brand reborn!
Gabe Alonso Dockers has certainly been busy the last year or so. They recently teamed up with photographer, The Selby, to create a new look book for their newly realized brand identity. This isn’t your dad’s chino company anymore.
I’ve raved about the affordability and quality of Dockers before and this time I’d like to take it just a bit further. As I stated earlier, Dockers recently teamed up with The Selby to create a look book for their newly established identity. The pictures are decidedly more rugged and more “manly” than you would have previously expected from Dockers. Prior to this, mention of Dockers brought to mind scenes from “Office Space” complete with piles of TPS reports and broken fax machines. Now the images are set in the outdoors, with real men doing real men things (like creating art and braving the outdoors).
With this new found brand image, I’ve noticed that I’m not the only menswear aficionado that has embraced the new style. While we may lust over higher end brands, most of us can’t afford it and we’ve learned to make the affordable look better than the expensive (well, almost). Out of this passion for Dockers has stemmed a collaboration called A Sartorial et al, of which I have also contributed to. Led by Jeremiah Simmons of A Headlong Dive, click-through to read the testimonials from various menswear bloggers regarding their Dockers. You’ll find mine below as well as on his blog.
I have a couple fits of the Dockers family of chinos. I have the D1 Slim fit (in burgundy, green, and khaki) and also the Ankle chino (in red and green), which I believe has essentially become the Khaki Wader. Growing up, Dockers were always the go-to pants for any semi-formal or church-going occasion. As I got older, however, the pants gave way to “cooler” chinos, like the ones from Gap, with their crazy swing commercials and in your face marketing.
I’m incredibly happy to see Dockers making a comeback. Their new fits have been surprisingly tailored and on par with modern trends. Because of my stockier proportions (I have a thicker lower half), getting slim fit anything is always a nuisance. With Dockers, it wasn’t as much of an issue as I thought it’d be. I bought the D1s at my true waist size and they were a little snug in the thigh with a leg opening larger than I would have liked (8″, I believe). After one quick trip to the tailor for the 3 pairs I bought…Voila! I now have 3 well-fitting, tapered chinos for under $50 each (gotta love those Macy’s sales).
The ankle chinos were a different story. At the time, I bought them from Urban Outfitters and they were the only tapered/slim option I could find for under $60. I had to size up considerably in the waist (from a 30″ to 33″) to get my thighs to fit. I rationalized this craziness because of the price point. I’ve since lost weight and now find the pants to be a bit bigger than I can deal with. Hopefully a trip to the tailor will be able to fix these babies up, as the overall silhouette of the pant is still great.
I’m really excited to see what Dockers has planned for the future. Their collaboration with Alexander Wang (winner of GQ’s Best Menswear Designer in America) is sure to create some interesting pieces. I can only imagine it will help catapult their rising popularity and put them back on top of the affordable chino hierarchy, where they deserve to be.
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