When I was out visiting my sister in Indiana, we got to talking about regional differences in the United States. One of my sister’s friends looked down at the trousers I was wearing — somewhat threadbare khakis with a coffee stain or grease stain here and there.
This woman, who is from California, smiled when she saw my khakis. “You Easterners with your khakis. You always wear khakis. It’s cute.”
I did not tell her about the pair of vintage Levi 501s that I bought when we lived in Oakland. I just smiled and said, “Of course we wear khakis. They’re very practical.” Which is true:– even with coffee and grease stains, khakis can look fairly respectable.
On the long drive back to New England, at a rest area near Albany, I saw a man wearing khaki pants and a neat tan shirt and a baseball cap, and I knew I was getting close to home:– there is a certain class of New England working man — cabinetmakers, high-end landscapers, sculptors even — for whom that is a kind of uniform. Then there are the upper middle class New Englanders who wear crisply-pressed khakis pants with boat shoes and woven leather belts, which is another way to wear khaki pants. And there are the guys like me, ministers and teachers and people in the non-profit world, who wear khakis and button-down Oxford shirts with ties to the office. But it is true that I did not see anyone wearing khakis when I was in Indiana.
And when I wear shorts and a sweater, everyone in Indiana thinks I’m nuts. “Why aren’t you wearing LONG pants?” they cry. Cuz, um, it’s not that cold? But cold enough to wear a sweater? I don’t know. I grew up wearing shorts and a sweater when it got about chilly enough to do that. Besides, you never know when you’re going to need to get on a boat. If you’re wearing long pants, they’ll get wet. Right? Right.
Oh dear, I’m wearing khakis, a pinpoint shirt and black Oxfords to go to a dinner. True to type, I suppose.
Here in the rural south, we associate Khakis with “Preppy People”
( I just asked someone eldr what kind of folks wore khakis to make sure it wasnt just me who thought that). Of course that might show my age as well my locale….
I associate khakis with my post-military career “Dilbert” clothes that I wear to work (sitting in a cubicle as I type this).
Khakis plus a dress shirt or generic polo shirt and I look presentable for the “business casual” work culture in my office.
I am a funny looking naked guy. I am tall—rumor has it that I once topped 6’2†before gravity and age began to take their inevitable toll. But I have real short legs. All of my height is in my torso. I ordinarily wear a 29†inseam. I grew up a Westerner from Wyoming, which is to say that jeans and boots were issued at birth. But several years ago, by my middle forties, as my waist disappeared under a prodigious belly overhang. It became harder and harder to find jeans that fit—unless I would deign to wear those awful stretch faux jeans for fat guys. Besides, good jeans—Levis, Lees, or Wranglers—began escalating in price. About the same time my feet began to splay out from a career as a never-sitting school custodian. I couldn’t squeeze them into pointy cowboy boots any more. One day while shopping at my ever reliable K-Mart, I just gave up and bought some khakis. They cost half as much as the jeans. I could wear them with a sport shirt around town, and with a sport coat and tie for church and mid-level dress up. When they got old and stained, they just went into rotation as work pants and lawn mowing clothes. Fifteen years later with a new job that calls for “business casual†I wear almost nothing but khakis in various combinations. I haven’t had a pair of jeans for years. But I do get some strange looks. You see the one part of my quaint native peasant costume that I never gave up was my cowboy hat. I never leave home without one. Khakis, oxfords, colored dress shirts, semi-gaudy ties, and a cowboy hat. That guy. What a nerd!
You can always spot the middle-aged American tourist in Europe: white sneakers. The white sneakers give the game away every time.
Now that so many offices are doing ‘business casual’ (and thank Heavens for that), I thought everybody was in khakis. Everywhere.