Casual pants in department stores are casual pants

"Casual pants in department stores are casual pants," says Luehrs. "In discount stores, they are dress-up pants that people might wear to church. It's a dress-up pant for the blue-collar guy. For the guy who shops at Macy's, it's a casual Friday product."

This buying pattern, adds Luehrs, is evidenced by how products are merchandised: In department stores, dress pants and casual khakis are in separate departments. At mass, there are usually no true dress pants available; generally, khakis are merchandised with or alongside jeans.

In all channels, though, a desire for neatness and comfort is encouraging consumers to think about khakis, says Dickies' Ragsdale. "It's an in-between category'" he adds. "My impression of the khaki pant customer is that it is their number one concern to feel comfortable but to feel they look good and not dressed down. They also don't want to look too young."

A few years ago, offering khaki pants with wide appeal was difficult for value-driven retailers. What was available mainly came via private label and little-known suppliers. Often, pants had strange fits which were sometimes caused by stiff fabrics and "knock-off" silhouettes. But development of better finishing processes in recent years and increased branding of the category is making khakis more attractive to mass merchants and consumers.

"Garments have softened up significantly," says Barrow's Jennings. "This has allowed the category to grow tremendously at mass while adding only $1 to the retail price as opposed to the $4 or $5 added by finishing garments [for softness] the old way."

On the branding end, almost every major jeans supplier now offers khaki pants. To some, this may be the suppliers' defense against the ever-increasing quality and popularity of private label in jeans and other sportswear.

"Originally, it was all private label in khakis," says V.F.'s LaGrega. "While there's been big changes in private label, consumers who tried those products in the past were not happy with the quality. So they were reluctant to try again, even years later.

"In developing products, we found there was not a recognizable brand for men they trusted," he adds. "From a quality point of view, they did not perceive that the discounter had a product with which they associated quality." yanzic0710.

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Like jeans, hues are neutral

On the color side, choices include navy, stone, black, olive and, of course, khaki. Like jeans, hues are neutral. Dickies' Ragsdale notes that khaki has become the category's name, even when it is not a product's color. "Today's consumers and trade buyers use khaki as a designation for a category," he adds. "The word `khaki' denotes color, although it's come to mean a certain type of pants as well. We have consumers calling our navy pants khakis."

Still, there are wide differences in opinion over what is and is not a khaki pant. For many experts, though, the deciding factor seems to be the fabric. "It's a lighter fabric," says Leuhrs. "In jeans, you mostly use 14.75-ounce denim; in casual pants, you're talking 8-ounce fabric."

Everybody also has a different theory on when khaki pants first became popular: One retailer says they were popularized in the 1940s via Gregory Peck movies; Dickies, which has offered its classic "874" khakis for years, says its production of khaki uniform pants for World War II spurred the original trend, and a regional retailer says they were the East Coast college "uniform" during the early 1960s.

Whatever the true story may be, most suppliers are reporting even larger gains in casual pants than retailers. Since many of products have been sold to chains but have not yet hit the retail floor, the increase could be a harbinger of even better days to come.

Luehrs says-khakis now represent 35 to 40 percent of his overall pants business; growth of five-pockets has slowed to "less than 5 percent," he adds.

Thomas R. Jennings, president of Barrow Manufacturing Co. of Winder, GA, says cotton twills now comprise 75 percent of sales; jeans represent a mere 5 percent. Five years ago, about 40 percent of the company's business was in casual pants and 25 percent in jeans. Remaining business is and has been done in dress pants and other products. "Five or six years ago, cotton twills weren't that much in demand," he adds, "although we had them."

NOT JUST FOR CASUAL FRIDAY

Casual Fridays have played a major role in khakis' resurgence in the 1990s. But while Wall Street employees may shop for Friday garb at The Gap, khakis can take on different meanings at mass, where many shoppers are employed in blue-collar occupations. yanzic0710.

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Anticipated effects of school uniforms include the end of rivalry among students in expensive dress and jewelry

And therein lies the fly embedded in a ball of wax. Without a mandate by the chief school authority, approved by his board of education, violations of the uniform requirement would be a source of continuous disruption. Even with a mandate, there are many parents who would object to the expense of school uniforms. And there are children and high school youths so accustomed to doing it their way that they would defy a dress code.

Nevertheless, thee are a few schools--the newly created all-girls school in Harlem; Intermediate School 59, Manhattan; Azalea Elementary, Pinellas County, Fla.; the Long Beach, Calif., public school system--that have mandated uniforms. These uniforms are not elaborate--for example, light-blue shirts and dark-blue pants or skirts.

Anticipated effects of school uniforms include the end of rivalry among students in expensive dress and jewelry, elimination of gang insignia in schools, end of sex-messages on T-shirts.

Any public school that seeks to follow the example of parochial schools where uniforms are a tradition should do so. Prior involvement of parents is a minimum. Assurance of maximum cooperation must be obtained before announcing a school uniform policy. Uniforms would be a step in the direction of restoring school discipline, but they are not a panacea.

For those willing to take the chance, the motto should be "Tinker be damned! Full speed ahead!" yanzic0705.

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Recognizing the Connection Between Dress and Behavior

The baggy-pants generation in our schools affirms its alleged constitutional right to dress as it pleases. And it pleases to be so scruffy as to invite demurrers from President William J. Clinton, New York City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew and school administrators nationwide.

For school youths who cannot write a single, literate paragraph about the origins of the Constitution, to invoke I st Amendment protection for the right to dress as slobs borders on sacrilege. Probably not one in a hundred thousand could cite the U.S. Supreme Court decision that has been used in the past quarter of a century to justify the dragging down of learning to the level of their dress.

The youths do not have to cite the law. It is invoked for them by chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Count on the ACLU to be at the court doors whenever its action can destroy discipline in a school.

The bedrock case that has sunk schools in the quicksand of rotten dress and matching behavior in many of the 100,000 public schools in the nation is Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969). The Tinkers sent their children to both elementary and high schools in Iowa. Although the principals had adopted a role prohibiting the wearing of armbands, the Tinker children deliberately wore black anti-Vietnam War armbands.

Tinker Decision Used To Justify Scruffy Attire

A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Tinker children were exercising 1st Amendment rights of free speech. It is the Tinker decision that is being used up to the present day to justify the scrofulous attire of many school children.

Although Tinker rings a bell with principals, it is not so loud that it has dimmed many court decisions that sustain the right of principals to enforce dress codes designed to prevent school disruption. Apart from the baggy pants, unlaced, oversized shirt tails hanging out, shoulder-length hair, there are T-shirts with messages so vulgar that we shall not repeat them in this column. As a single example, there is the Ohio federal court decision in 1987 that put down students who sued to allow them to attend a prom dressed as a person of the opposite sex. In the court's view, schools have the authority to enforce dress regulations that teach community values and promote school discipline.

In the hope of reforming schools, because they see rightly the connection between dress and behavior, Clinton, Crew and many others are calling for public school children to wear uniforms. Crew has limited this to the first three grades, but the President would cover all grades. Neither would mandate school uniforms.  yanzic0705.

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