You’re a copywriter, a communications director, an elusive creative director with undetermined responsibilities. So why are you dressed like a 20th century French railway worker? Today, some 70 million employed Americans will likely work behind a desk. However, our obsession with clothing for a different type of work life continues. Between 1910 and 2000, blue-collar jobs such as mining, construction, and manufacturing fell from 76% of the American workforce to 25%. Still, the image of the worker resonates ad infinitum through the work jackets, cargo pants and rugged boots sold in metropolitan stores, designer showrooms or seen on the streets of fashion capitals like London, Paris and New York. The term “work clothes” probably also includes more clothing than you think. In his upcoming book, “Blue Collar Modernism,” men’s fashion editor David Hellqvist offers a detailed history of fashion’s biggest brands and their connection to the occupation. Jeans, the basis of contemporary clothing, have their roots in the Californian mining industry of the 19th century. Even the little copper rivets that hold down the pockets of our jeans, a feature so ubiquitous in modern denim that it mostly goes unnoticed, were designed to reinforce the seams against rips and keep the garment strong. The technology was patented as early as 1873. Elsewhere, Dr Martens were derived from a military boot, while Barbour’s waxed jackets were first created as rubber outerwear for fishermen and sailors in 1894. Utilitarian workwear first emerged from factories in the early 20th century. Artists were one of the first groups of adopters who helped recontextualize overalls, jeans and work coats, according to fashion historian Sonya Abrego. “Looking back, it may seem kind of avant-garde, trendy and trendy to us,” Abrego, author of the 2022 book, “Westernwear: Postwar American Fashion and Culture,” said in a phone call. “But they were actually trying to make an anti-fashion statement.” Not to mention the fact that these artists were still working and completing a physical task that required some level of functional clothing. Abrego points to a photograph of Jackson Pollock taken in his studio in 1949 for Life magazine, kneeling on a huge canvas dripping paint from a brush. “It’s about the movement around the canvas,” he said. “And he’s wearing jeans and a work coat, they just match.” World War II helped further globalize worker clothing. Many of the American soldiers fighting overseas wore denim, often provided by Levi’s. The brand was recognized by the War Production Board and even its costs were set by the Office of Price Administration. When the war ended, Europe seemed enamored of this new all-American fabric, which had been catapulted into pop culture with films like “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1952) and “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955). In fact, European youth were so enamored that in 1959 the New York Times reported that a teenager in East Berlin was arrested for buying jeans in the city’s western enclave. His sentence was two months, to “serve as a warning” to others hoping to try this new democratic style. Nearly 70 years later, workwear is one of fashion’s most enduring love stories. But why? These garments are imbued with a sense of nostalgia and reflect a quality of craftsmanship that is largely absent in today’s affordable clothing, Abrego thinks. “The connection to work also speaks quite strongly,” he said. Perhaps people are honoring a family history of commerce, despite not working in these jobs today. The appeal is particularly strong for men’s fashion. “We have always looked for inspiration in these types of professions,” Hellqvist said. “Many of us aspire to be that kind of man who can fix things and get things done. I know I certainly can’t, but I can pretend to be that guy.” With his book, Hellqvist set out to expand the definition of workwear beyond the obvious legacy brands of Levi’s and Carhartt. “They’re not like the miners in the gold rush anymore,” he said, “they’re office workers in the city.” Instead, Hellqvist covers the subculture’s history with a light touch and zooms in on a curated, highly shoppable list of brands that he believes are pushing this style of clothing in new ways. On their radar are Japanese brand Auralee (featured by Lyst this summer as a rising star in data from the latest men’s fashion shows); Fera, a British brand specializing in understated puffer vests and reworked cotton Harrington jackets and Mfpen, a Copenhagen-based brand that makes relaxed tailored suits from deadstock fabrics. However, most of the designers included are simply “inspired” by workwear, Hellqvist said. These next-generation brands emulate the look of everyday garments without the purpose of a craft in mind or a “problem” to solve through clothing. But “the way they choose fabrics and the way they think about clothing in terms of functionality” keeps them in the lineage of predecessors like Dickies, Ben Davis and Vetra, he said. One contemporary brand keeping traditional work-driven design alive is Service Works, a London-based chef apparel brand founded by Tom Chudley in 2020. After more than a decade working in restaurants, Chudley told Hellqvist that he grew tired of “polycotton plastic” that “rubbed my legs up and down for 10 hours a day.” Their clothing line makes traditional cotton canvas chef pants, aprons, work coats renamed “Trade Jackets,” shirts, T-shirts, and double-fold cotton pants that can be worn by servers and other catering staff. These pieces are the de facto uniforms of London’s small plate scene, but they also have a fashionable following outside the industry and are sold at retailers like End and Nordstrom. Of course, there is something ironic and even ahistorical about wearing blue-collar clothing in a white-collar world. There are those who resist “people paying a lot of money to use something that a sharecropper used to sit at a desk all day,” Abrego said. Although personally, he doesn’t find it “much more unpleasant or hypocritical than anything else.” “I really don’t think there’s an authentic, real, true way to dress or present yourself,” she said. “If you want to wear cowboy boots and you don’t live in the West, do it.”
