Dickies, one of the country’s best-known workwear brands, will move its headquarters from Fort Worth to Costa Mesa to join its sister brand, streetwear icon Vans.
The move represents a real estate consolidation by VF Corp., which owns Dickies And Vans as well as outdoor brands North Face, Timberland and JanSport.
The move marks a rare reversal in a series of corporate headquarters moves from California to Texas. High-profile departures include Chevronone of the world’s largest oil companies, which announced in August that it would move its headquarters from San Ramon to Houston. Elon Musk announced that he would move his companies SpaceX and X from California to Texas.
In contrast in scale, Dickies’s jump from a town known as Cowtown to a formerly nicknamed Goat Hill It will affect about 120 employees, said Ashley McCormack, director of external communications at VF.
“This move allows VF to further consolidate its U.S. real estate portfolio as part of its business turnaround strategy,” McCormack said in a statement.
Bringing together the people who work at Dickies and Vans also aims to “create an even more vibrant campus where creativity and sharing of best practices can thrive through increased collaboration and connections,” she said.
The move, possibly including relocating employees to California, is expected to be completed by May. The Vans offices, surrounded at the top by the famous Vans ladies, are located at 1588 S. Coast Drive in Costa Mesa, off the 405 Freeway.
Retail industry observer Dominick Miserandino did not see Dickies’ move as part of a larger trend, instead characterizing it as a move to maximize the use of properties VF owns in Costa Mesa instead of retaining Dickies’ leased headquarters in Fort Worth.
“People attribute other things to it,” Miserando said, while real estate ownership “might be the bigger factor than the weirdness” of seeing a company move from Texas to California.
“Obviously you make a decision like this for reasons of operational efficiency,” said Miserandino, managing director of the industry publication. Retail Wire.
Denver-based VF has faced financial challenges in recent years, with the company’s net revenue declining each year since its 2022 fiscal year.
The company has a revitalization strategy focused on its Vans brand, whose revenue fell 11% in the second quarter ended September 28, a marked improvement from the previous quarter when the brand was down 22%. executives told investors during the earnings call last month. , real estate data provider CoStar reported. The Dickies brand also saw an 11% decline in the second quarter, compared to a 14% drop in revenue in the first quarter.
“We have a plan to return to growth for Vans,” VF President Bracken P. Darrell said on the call. He did not provide details, but acknowledged mistakes that came after a boom period from 2015 to 2020, when the brand became popular with cultural fashion designers and celebrities, leading to sales among a clientele wider.
“We actually turned our attention to the youth audience that was the lifeblood of Vans,” Darrell said. “The brand needed to evolve, but rather than continuing to respect and serve the young audience that had built the brand, we only fueled the trend that made it grow rapidly. We have largely removed marketing aimed at young people and instead focused on everyone.
News of Dickies’ move shook some people in Fort Worth, where the company was co-founded in 1922 by E.E. “Colonel” Dickie and enjoyed great notoriety as a local company. Dickies Arena is one of the city’s premier entertainment venues for concerts, community events and the annual Forth Worth Stock Show & Rodeo.
“Last week’s announcement that Dickies was moving from its Fort Worth headquarters to a new headquarters in California shocked city leaders and left the brand’s most loyal fans in Texas stunned.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
