Every week a different FADER staff member will pick a clothing item or accessory that he or she has lately been spending a lot of time with—or would like to—and write a little love letter to it. We would’ve done a column on who we’re dating but that seemed a little bit much. This week David Bevan writes about Dockers K-1 Khakis.
Growing up, I never went to private school and I rarely found myself in church on Sundays. We lived in rural New Mexico, a place and culture that, unless you were Mormon/a socially handicapped transplant like my Dad (love you, man), didn't really require kids or adults to invest all that heavily in dress clothing. There just wasn't a place for them. But when junior high dances began rolling around and yours truly needed a pair of dress slacks to house his growing legs, pleated Dockers were the best/only bet at our local mall. Woven of the finest khaki sandpaper, they were set up not just to repel girls, but to be about as uncomfortable as a pant could be. Everybody lost.
Since then, my relationship with chinos has been confused. I've pushed them to that side of the closet only to be accessed when family reunions roll around, one suit all I need right now for nice dinners or job interviews or weddings or the like. Not anymore. Dockers' new K-1 khaki, faithfully modeled after the same cotton chinos American GIs introduced to college campuses after World War II, have been something of a revelation and cause to put blue jeans down for a while. They're versatile. They're durable. They are suspiciously soft. In fact, despite all that, they fit and feel as though I'm not wearing pants at all. Everybody wins.