Dickies, workwear for working people
Dickies began life in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1922 when C.N. Williamson and E.E. “Colonel” Dickie bought U.S. Overall and set about making bib overalls and hard-wearing work garments for the American South and Southwest. The business drew on an earlier 1918 partnership between the two men, and its reputation was built on durable fabrics, straightforward patterns and prices that made sense to working people. During the Second World War, the company was requisitioned to sew uniforms for the U.S. armed forces, a huge production run that sharpened its industrial know-how. In the 1950s, the brand pushed beyond the United States into Europe and the Middle East, helped along by Texan oil workers who wore their Dickies overseas. By the late twentieth century, pieces like the 874 work pant had become everyday work-wear for trades, schools and subcultures alike.
A move into skate fashion
In October 2017, VF Corporation, the owner of Vans, The North Face, and Timberland, acquired Williamson-Dickie for $820 million, turning Dickies into a VF subsidiary and accelerating its global, fashion-focused push while maintaining the workwear DNA. The purchase also formalised what skaters already knew: that the workwear uniform and skate uniform had long overlapped.
Skateboarders have been wearing Dickies for decades because the clothes last, look clean and don’t restrict you whilst skating. In recent years, the company has built a dedicated Dickies Skateboarding line rather than simply relying on the workwear carry-over. The skate pants take the 874’s classic straight-leg style and translate it for skating: tougher twills, a touch of stretch, reinforced seat and pockets, hard-wearing buttons and zips, and details you feel more than you see, like soft herringbone pocket bags and discrete interior branding. Double-knee versions add an extra layer where skateboarding can often chew fabric the most; some styles use moisture-wicking blends and contrast stitching while keeping that no-nonsense silhouette. Put simply, they’re made to take slams and keep their shape.
Dickies' skate team
The same approach runs through the tops: heavyweight tees and chore-style overshirts that fit and move well, with reinforced seams and fabrics that don’t go limp after a week. Capsule releases with team riders refine the formula and collections with skaters such as Mike Anderson, Jamie Foy, Ronnie Sandoval, Guy Mariano, layer rider-requested fits and fabrics onto the core Dickies template without straying into gimmicks.
The team underlines where the brand sits in skating now. Mike Anderson, for example, represents that all-terrain, rough-spot, high-longevity skating the clothes are built for, whereas someone like Tom Knox embodies the way European street skating, tight lines, quick feet, and awkward architecture. Both demand gear that’s both free-moving and tough. Dickies profiles and tours have featured both of them heavily, and the brand’s first full-length film, “Honeymoon,” gathered the wider crew to show what the skate programme is about on the streets rather than in a boardroom.
Taken together, the history and the present tell a clear story. Dickies grew up solving practical problems for people who work with their hands; skating simply exposed those same strengths under different stresses. Today’s Dickies Skateboarding range keeps the line clean, the fabrics tough and the construction hard-wearing, with rider-led tweaks where they matter most. That continuity, from wartime factories to modern street spots, from Fort Worth workshops to a global skate team with riders like Jamie Foy and Tom Knox, is why the brand’s skate gear doesn’t feel like a fashion detour so much as the natural evolution of what it has always done.
