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Dickies’ relocation from Fort Worth, Texas, to Orange County this year points to its parent company VF Corp.’s ongoing attempts to recapture sales at a time when three of its four core brands need a reset.
The work apparel company, founded in 1922, will join their sister brand Vans at its Costa Mesa headquarters in May.
“This move allows VF to further consolidate its U.S. real estate portfolio as part of its stated business turnaround strategy,” VF Corp. spokesperson Ashley McCormack told the Business Journal at the time of the news.
Approximately 120 employees in Texas are being affected by the move, yet the company has not shared how many would relocate to California. Since February, Dickies has posted 41 open positions from management to design in Costa Mesa.
The Business Journal estimates around 760 employees currently work at the Vans campus.
“This is part of this bigger picture story that we really try to create a company of powerful brands,” Chief Executive Bracken Darrell told investors on March 6. “And so we want the energy, the transfer of knowledge, all the things that go with being a company of multiple brands.
“Because we’re really resetting the Dickies brand completely from the start. We felt like we had a moment (where) we could do that,” he added. VF Corp. also completed multiple leadership changes last year as part of its turnaround plan.
Dickies Global Brand President Chris Goble, who arrived from Gap North America late last year, “is already having a big impact,” according to Darrell.
“Chris came to us most recently from the Gap, where he helped engineer the turnaround of the brand as the Chief Product Officer globally for all of Gap and the GM of the huge U.S. business,” Darrell said.
The executive is hoping Goble can coordinate the same reset at the workwear brand, which is distributed in 55 countries.
“His unique experience with heritage brands, he also spent time at Levi’s, by the way, makes him a perfect fit for Dickies,” Darrell added.
Goble also took the stage on the investor day and shared his plans to “reorient Dickies to its core workwear heritage to drive a return to growth.”
“Workwear is inherently the opposite of fast fashion,” Goble said. “It’s built to last.
“And after a few years of declining sales, we’re here today to share our strategic reset.”
Even though the company isn’t scheduled to move into its new home until May, the Business Journal has decided to put the venerable brand on its annual directory of apparel companies based in Orange County (see page 17).
Igniting the Product Engine
For the fiscal year ended March 2024, Dickies reported annual revenue fell 15% to $618.4 million. Vans, while a far larger unit, also reported its fiscal 2024 sales dropped 24% to $2.8 billion. Parent company VF (NYSE: VFC) reported companywide revenue fell 10% to $10.5 billion in fiscal 2024.
In January, Dickies posted fiscal third-quarter revenue of $134 million, down 10% from $148 million in the same period last year. VF Corp. cited “soft traffic and pressured wholesale” as headwinds for Dickies’ performance.
The Dickies brand has struggled so much that management determined that the continued downturn in its financial results and projections combined with expectations of a slower recovery than previously anticipated, was “a triggering event” that required a $51 million impairment charge in the third quarter, according to a filing.
Goble aims to center both the functionality and aesthetic of workwear in all future innovations of Dickies apparel products.
This will apply to the brand’s performance workwear, built for traditional workers with durability and comfort in mind, and lifestyle workwear, which leans into the category’s design and style for casual consumers.
“Similar to the other brands in the VF portfolio, Dickies was born out of functional needs, performance, solving unmet needs in the marketplace to provide workwear solutions for the working class,” Goble said.
Goble illustrated Dickies’ evolution from workwear in the 1920s past World War II to casual wear in the 1960s through the 80s and then skaters and musicians’ adoption of the apparel starting in the 2000s.
“Unfortunately, we lost our obsession with work and shifted too quickly into lifestyle,” he said, adding that the company also lost focus on the “value customer.”
Goble’s playbook involves streamlining the design, innovation and execution of Dickies apparel.
“Our product architecture has been quite fragmented across our geographies and distribution channels. This doesn’t afford us the benefits of scale or product conviction across our value chain,” he said. “We will get disciplined with global franchise management to unlock our product engine, and once we have that product engine firing, we will be better suited to drive global big ideas through the marketplace.”
Dickies will ignite this engine through the “collection of iconic products that we’re famous for,” according to Goble. He referenced the Dickies coverall, the bib overall, the 874 pants and its Eisenhower jacket. “We could change the proportion, the silhouette, the print or even graphic to make it more relevant,” he said.
“If you’re a brand geek like me, getting the opportunity to leverage an incredible archive for future growth is an absolute dream come true,” Goble added.
Creating Value Again
Goble referenced the previous stops of his career which led him to VF Corp. as “valuable lessons in brand management.”
He credited American Eagle Outfitters for learning how to utilize consumer obsession and Levi’s for witnessing product-led growth at a 150-year-old brand.
At Old Navy, Goble said he “developed operational discipline and rigor” due to the size and scale of the company and with Gap, he pointed to what he now aims to accomplish at Dickies — turning around a declining brand.
“So just a few months into the role, Bracken asked me to introduce myself and give you a small taste of a proven playbook that we’re deploying to execute this turnaround,” Goble told investors in March.
“We will obsess work, putting workers at the center of every decision, using their insights to drive design led innovation, and unleashing our creative conviction in the marketplace with big ideas, executed with modern marketing,” he said. “I’m excited about the Dickies brand and the value creation opportunities as we go forward, and I look forward to seeing you again, and hopefully I’ll be seeing you wearing Dickies.”