For the love of Dickies

SS Mothership / Read / For the love of Dickies

As my 16-year-old daughter appears from her bedroom to announce she is ready for her driving lesson wearing a boob tube and a pair of 2 size too big Dickies folded down at the waist I decide to refrain from saying out loud the thoughts that are echoing around my head in my mother’s voice “I used to wear that exact same look at your age”. Instead, I hide my new collection of dickies between layers of trackies folded up in my wardrobe to safe proof them from the wide variety of stains that seem to appear on everything my daughter “borrows” & beg the Gods for mercy as she drives us around the backstreets of Byron bay confusing the accelerator for the break.

I will never forget the first time I laid my eyes on a pair of big Dickies. It was 1999, I was 14 years old, ‘Cruel Intentions’ had just become available on VHS, ‘American Pie’ had just been released at the cinema and Blink 182 released their 3rd album “Enema of the State”, which would be the first CD I would ever purchase with my own money. It was everyone’s favorite band and everyone’s favorite new “look”. We all wanted to get our hands on a big pair of Dickies. But for those of us growing up in a small coastal town of Queensland, it would be a look that would prove difficult to replicate since Dickies were hard to come by. Luckily, we had one kid in our group of friends whose family would make bi-annual trips to LA and who very quickly became our Dickies mule. For the next few years of high school, the guys would show up in a pair of big Dickies sliding halfway down a pair of satin ‘Looney Tunes’ boxer shorts held up by a belt adorned with a big silver buckle and attempt to convince the teachers that they had purchased them from the uniform store.

I would go on to experience a bunch of firsts while wearing a big pair of Dickies. My first CD, my first Job, my first boyfriend, my first kiss, my first formal/Prom, my first fight with my BFF, my first driver’s lesson, my first drink, my first music festival, my first heartbreak. While Dickies has been and will be around forever (I recently attended their 100-year birthday celebration – sorry for licking the cake) and to this day remain a staple in so many wardrobes, the trend resurgence of the late 90s/early 2000s means I now get to watch my daughter experience her teens and a bunch of first in a big pair of Dickies too.

Shop Denim Dickies

Images & video:
-Me with my daughter wearing the new denim Dickies release in our hometown of Byron Bay Australia.
-Exerts from my 1999/2000 diary that I shared with my BFF Melida.
-Licking the cake at the Dickies 100th Birthday Party last year.
-Blink 182 ‘Adams Song’ music video