Willy Chavarria and Dickies Have a New Workwear Collaboration
Workwear started as safety clothing for manual laborers and was often constructed of sturdy fabrics like denim and corduroy, with an oversize fit to allow for movement.
Today, there’s a renewed interest in workwear as both men and women mix elements of workwear, particularly wide-legged pants, heavy-duty boots and utility jackets, into their personal styles. It is perhaps the only genre of fashion capable of straddling socioeconomic, geographic and political fault lines; though much of the trend has been menswear focused, lately it has shed some of the overt machismo of previous incarnations.
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Willy Chavarria, a master at mismatching workwear elements with streetwear, is now collaborating with Dickies on a capsule collection, reimagining iconic silhouettes of Dickies hero products, such as work shirts, pants and jackets, which will be available at Bergdorf Goodman as well at Dickies’ and Chavarria’s e-commerce sites.
The Latino designer imbues his collections with a sense of drama, excitement and social awareness. He is known for his oversize garments and lowrider inspired silhouettes, dropped shoulders, ruching, wide legs and cropped cuts, always aiming to make his namesake label inclusive and representative of the realities of life through the lens of fashion.
Chavarria has had an extensive relationship with the workwear landscape. In October 2010, he established his own multibrand menswear store, Palmer Trading Company, in New York’s SoHo, which sold vintage wares and American workwear staples like Filson and Dickies.
In 2014, Dickies recruited Chavarria to help launch “Construct,” a premium label coinciding with culture’s surging interest in elevated workwear, and Chavarria has featured extensive collaborations each season within his namesake brand.
The need for workwear has slowly become part of Chavarria consumers’ rotation. Affordable and hard-wearing, these products have become an evergreen alternative to the hamster wheel of the industry’s trend cycle.
“I always look to combine exaggerated silhouettes, soft tailoring and functionality within my designs. It is important for me to show history’s iconic styling of Dickie’s workwear through an elegant fashion lens. With this collaboration we wanted to take the most classic Dickies styles and reinterpret them to have more intentional design features — bold sleeves, strong lines and interesting proportions whilst still creating an aesthetic that is authentic to both brands,” Chavarria said.
The new range includes a total of nine pieces, from structured work shirts, oversize bomber jackets, wide-leg cargo pants, tailored shorts and more, created in a sophisticated color palette of black and beige. Key pieces for the capsule release include the Wide Leg Trouser, an elegant balance between the original Dickies 874 and runway styles from Chavarria’s namesake label, and an updated take on shorts, this version in a high-rise, low-cut hem, slim in the hips — a homage the original street styling of the Dickies brand. The Willy Chavarria x Dickies exclusive capsule is priced from $210 to $250, and is available for purchase now.
“Workwear is something that continually evolves to reflect the times and the way people think. Workwear is now sportswear. It was Chicano culture that launched the concept of wearing workwear as a clean and polished aesthetic. The look was later adopted by gang culture and then borrowed by skate culture in the ’90s. In the early 2000s, we saw a huge crossover trend bringing workwear as streetwear into the mass market. With this collection, I pay homage to the originators of the adaptation into streetwear by designing the styles through a high fashion interpretation,” Chavarria told WWD.
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