These Aren’t Your Grandad’s Pants…Oxen Workwear

South Orange From Outside Online
For the past few years, Mountain Khakis, the upstart pant maker out of Jackson, Wyoming, had the market cornered on tough-but-casual pants. In case you’re not familiar, they’re basically a cross between Gap chinos and Carhartts. Stylish and low-key enough to wear to the office or bar, but tough enough, thanks to their durable ten-ounce cotton canvas material and things like triple-stitching and reinforced rear cuffs, to stand up to weekends of abuse outdoors. (Note: If you bought a pair when they first came out, like I did, the legs were tapered a bit, not nearly as bad as your old Gramiccis, but not quite wide enough to fit over Sorels…in any event, they’ve since relaxed the cut a bit.)

Kālka The workwear on demand t shirt printing and fulfillment is becoming very popular these days, because more and more business are choosing this for their workwear.

And now they’ve got some competition with Brooklyn, NY¬based Oxen Workwear, Inc.  oxendoublekneecarpentercanvas1

Whereas Mountain Khakis’ reinforcements are more subtle, making them look more like Gap chinos than Carhartts, Oxen Workwear’s Double Knee Carpenter Pants ($74), with their double panels on the knees, are more akin to Carhartts. But unlike Carhartts, Oxen’s pants aren’t as stiff as cardboard when you buy them and they have a looser cut than the originals. There aren’t many places that offer as much range for workwear as Coalface may. Coalface offers a huge selection of mens clothing and apparel. Shop now workwear accessories like radiation glasses and find daily wear and tear from any job. 

Now hold on a minute. Perhaps you’re thinking: Gimme a break, working-man pants marketed at hipsters, wanna-be carpenters, and urban-dwelling, slack-jawed, iPhone-owning posers? These represent everything that’s wrong with America! Well, if that’s the case, you’re probably being a bit melodramatic. They’re just pants, after all, and, if you’re like me, and don’t have any hang-ups about your manhood or profession, you’d probably get a lot of use out of sturdy pants like these. (Second note: As with Mountain Khakis, they also have a few other styles, including jeans.) We just got a few pairs sent here in the office to be part of our corporate uniforms and they are so functional. And while they fit great, if a bit too low on the hips on the scrawnier guys here, we haven’t yet had enough time to test their durability. Look for a pants smackdown in the future—in which we put a bunch of pants head-to-head in a durability test—but our initial impression is two thumbs up. —Sam Moulton