SL: Dockers as a brand is just 20 years old, but drew on a great history from its beginning. Given the breadth of the story (in materials and associations) how do you start defining a contemporary approach to the khaki pant?

NL: It’s a great question, and one we ask ourselves all the time. It’s one we asked ourselves seriously when we sat down a year ago to start working on the relaunch of the brand asking “what’s the most important thing about khaki?” The answer is found, like in most cases, in going back to the beginning. Saying, “what is it? what’s the roll that khaki has played in history, in both world history and US history?” To your point, when Dockers launched 23 years ago, it reinvented the way guys dressed to go to work. That was the second time that this company, meaning Levi’s, had initiated a complete change in the way men get dressed. So, we set ourselves a pretty high goal of making the same sort of impact this time and making guys fall in love with their khakis. We are a little biased, but I honestly believe that khaki is the most versatile, most practical, and comfortable choice. And, I’m including jeans in that.

SL: Innovation in khaki pants has been a hallmark of Dockers since inception. In 1995 the campaign was directed towards making khaki casual again. Flat fronts, no cuffs, the K-1, these were combined to bring Khakis with a blue jean spirit. Clearly, today Levi’s is still a denim brand by association. How much of that core heritage comes into play when designing a new line for Dockers? Clearly, a lot has changed from 1995 in terms of mainstream views on the pants.

I think people’s views of khakis have changed. To be perfectly honest with you, it hasn’t really been in their view for the past ten years. We’re looking backwards at 10 years of amazing innovation in the denim world and the invasion of denim into parts of life it never dreamed it could live in. When we look even further back to your point about history and heritage, we see a long and noble tradition of khaki playing a key roll - whenever there is a critical moment in history and time to get some serious work done (which is the time we’re in right now) khaki is there. We’re proud to be part of such a great company, and when we talk about the history of khaki at the company it actually goes back before the launch of Dockers in the 1980s. If we go back to the beginning of Levi Strauss & Co., there are twill khaki pants there along with the denim. Levi’s actually manufactured uniforms for the military in khaki and twill fabrications. I think it is part of that heritage that we are drawing upon today. Making khaki the logical choice when work has to be done and jeans are not appropriate.

SL: You mention military uniforms, which is a good segue to the K-1. The K-1 was born as an attempt to develop an iconic khaki, for Levi’s, and plays on the military officer pant. How important is it to retain the features of its officer pant antecedent, like flat felled seams along both sides of the leg? In short, taking into account both the heritage within the brand and the wider heritage of the model in history, is there absolute need for historical accuracy in design?

NL: We take it into account, I think that is a great way of putting it. But, we are vary aware that we are not in the business of replication. Then we would go work at MGM in the costume department. The beautiful thing about American design, and khakis in particular, is they are designed with a purpose and that purpose is functionality. There’s so much amazing history in design in Asia and Europe. I feel that every culture has its own speciality. The thing that we bring, as an American brand and company, is the highest value of practicality and functionality. We think being authentic is critical, but if we were just reproducing we wouldn’t be making any kind of impact. What we are doing is taking the details that you’ve talked about and looking at what they represent. They represent quality, and the knowledge that the pant has to be produced to perform a function and get a man through his day regardless of what it entails.

We’ll hold on to those details, and to be fair we do fold in some of the things you’ve mentioned as a wink to those people that are as into as we are. The other thing we do is ask how we can protect the soul of that practical, functional, American design and serve it up in a way that is relevant for 2010, 2012, and 2012. We don’t need to duplicate the pants from 1940, we need to do for the man in 2010 what those pants did for the man in 1940. He may not be fighting a war, but he certainly has some challenges ahead and we think we’ve got the pants to help him overcome.