Help with hardwearing trousers please!

[ThankfulGirl]

Your forbearance please, gentlemen (and ladies) as I suspect this has been done to death in the depths of a thread but I couldn't find it.
My Hairy Bloke is very hard on his trousers. They go, inevitably, at the knees - tear across rather than wear through. He's not that tall, so finding decent trousers that a) don't make him look like a leftover from the old PG Tips ads and b) have got real knees and real pockets intended for people to do real.work whilst wearing, is like finding gold.

Your recommendations please for the hardest wearing trousers? (not necessarily.workwear!)
EDIT: He's 5'6" with a 36" waist and I'd like him.*not* to look like Tolkien's Gimli (his joke not mine) which is why I ' m looking for more classic styling.

 

[GHT]

Classic style will cost quite a bit more but if you do like classic styles keep an eye on Savvy Row. People who are very wealthy tend to buy their clothes to be worn just once or twice and then they can't be seen in them again. Savvy Row buys up their fabulous made to measure wear, and sells it at a fraction of the price.
But if you find that they are still a tad too expensive try Samuel Windsor, for a more budget price. These will be a more modern shape, but at their prices you could afford to alter them.
For a new pair of classic style trousers, something that you might go the extra for on a birthday, try Some Like It Holy. Here's a tip you might find useful, if you buy from Matalan, and buy oversize, by that I mean a waist size one size up and a trouser length two inches too long, you can get them altered to look classic. Matalan's trousers are very hard wearing. Here's what I mean by altering them. My wife took these oversize pants and turned them into faux vintage: (Just click on the name of those links to take you to their website.)

 

[ThankfulGirl]

Wonderful, thank you. Actually when you get to.the less fashionable waist sizes, Savvy Row are commensurate with the High Street aren't they? (I don't think £40 for a pair of good trousers is unreasonable at all!)

 

[Davy Crockett]

You could try Moleskins from Hebtroco or www.spencers-trousers.com tough as old boots and will fit perfectly!

D

 

[Edward]

A lot depends on how much you want to spend, but....

for several years I wore Charles Tyrwhitt's "weekend chinos" (also available in non-iron) for standard office wear. Great trousers. At two pairs for £80, and wearing almost nothing else for a year, I'd get at least a year out of them before they died, as cotton does. The moleskin and corduroy ones last better, fwiw. The legs on their Classic Cut with Pleats are nice, not exactly Oxford bags, but perfectly mid-thirties wide. The only reason I've stopped wearing them is that I'd like the waist an inch or two higher, and, crucially, the zipper on these is too short for me for comfort if one wishes to... download, so to speak, in the standing position without removing one's trousers entirely.... Worth considering, though, from pov of being cheap and readily available; they also do a wide range of colours and keep them consistently every season, so none of that hell of finding something perfect only to discover ten minutes later it's gone forever! In all truth, if TYrwhitts could be but persuaded to do a model with a waistband 2" higher and a zipper 4" longer, I'd buy a dozen pairs from them once every six years and be grand.

Another cheaper option if you're open to an element of synthetics is the classic American Dickies. Their 874 workpant is the highest waist and widest leg they do; in production unchanged since the early sixties, they're a very fifties look on me (though not pegs as such - a 44 waist pair is 19" around the hem, with only a small amount of taper from the waist). Very similar in fit to my Darcy trousers, but more modern in that they are a straight waistband and have beltloops. Price varies, but it's not hard to find them on UK Amazon for around GBP£40. Solid. So far, mine have a nice, cotton look - not shiny poly. They're listed as 8oz, but they feel much heftier. NB: most folks seem to find they need to order *one size up* from their regular size with these.

In the middle ground, www.sofmilitary.co.uk 's reenactment stuff if worth a gander. Wide price range.... I got some decent US WW2 repro cotton Chinos from them for just about £30. Their USN work denims have been criticised for not being accurate, but they make great civilian jeans. Won't hold up to something as good as my SJCs, *but* they are at least as good, imo, as Freddies.... and half the price. Nice, budget selvedge. Going up the price bands, there are plenty of wool trousers from £65-90ish- note, especially, the US Army Officer pinks and chocolates. If you're not squeamish about him wearing Axis stuff (noone will ever notice if you stay away from the jodhpurs and the trews with ankle-fastenings - pre -or early war patterns strictly), that does tend to broaden the colour palette significantly.

More generally, Army surplus stores, if you can find a good one (most have retreated online, alas) will have lots of great vintage-look trousers as part of dress uniforms. Once you filter out the ones with obvious piping and such, you can find some that work well.

Wested's https://www.wested.com/harrison-ford-indiana-jones-pants--trousers-100-wool-calvary-twill-6-p.asp Indiana Jones trousers are pretty good for £69, though (for obvious reasons) limited to the one colour....

Spencer's trousers are good - though do contact them directly; I know a fair few folks have stuff made there, and they seem to pay far less than one sees on their website. Where they excel is in copying a pair of trousers you already have - a perfect, favourite pair can be sent to them for reproduction, and I believe they can then keep the pattern on file so you just send them an order in future.

Rocacha do nice stuff, if not cheap - http://www.rocacha.com/trousers.htm

Darcy Clothing do a nice range of basic trousers, I'm very pleased with mine and will go back for more - www.darcyclothing.com . Start around the £70 mark.

Aero - www.aeroleatherclothing.com do some stunning moleskins and corduroys - http://www.aeroleatherclothing.com/products.php?cat=aerocloth - also good cotton ones. Upholstery grade fabrics, outstanding stuff. **Aero's trousers are currently on sale at 33% off** - worth checking out if they have the size. Sizes are *exact*, no vanity sizing there! I've handled a lot of Aero trousers and they are just outstanding.

SJC - www.simonjamescathcart.com - beautiful stuff. Not cheap - anywhere from GBP100-200 depending on cut and fabric, but very, very nice indeed if you want a stand-out piece that you'll not quite see anywhere else.


Failing all that...... has he considered a kilt? Wonderfully comfortable, and they never wear at the crotch or knee....

 

[ThankfulGirl]

The kilt? Yes. He's currently looking for work in the legal profession though (CILEX huzzah!) and I'm not sure how the hairy knees would work.in court

 

[Edward]

Ha, well.... it's unusual, but accepted, in legal academia (I've known two Scottish academics who rarely wear trousers at all). I'm giving it a go at gradation myself this year. outside of black tie events, probably not the best first choice in a more formal legal practice, though. Highly recommended round the house, mind, especially in Summer.

 

[Edward]

The kilt? Yes. He's currently looking for work in the legal profession though (CILEX huzzah!) and I'm not sure how the hairy knees would work.in court

Worth having a look on Amazon if you're interested in the 874 Dickies; I've just snared a couple of pairs at around £15.00 each, presumably Black Friday sale.

 

[Canadian]

I have a local source for Dickies in my size (much taller than the Walmart sizes) and they charge 29.95CDN. I walk in, they know me and I walk out with 2-3 pair trousers in under five minutes. No shipping required.

They also offer Wrangler pants, which (not jeans, they are cotton trousers in different colours - not necessarily denim) are fairly hard-wearing, but I find the Dickies (which retail for roughly the same price) are the better deal if you're really going to abuse them.

C.

 

[3fingers]

https://simonjamescathcart.com/collections/black-friday-2018-50-percent-off
SJC still has Black Friday deals going, however the longer you wait, I believe the percentage declines.
I would second the Dickies workwear.
Reasonably priced and lasts well.

 

[kschurch]

Take a look at our trousers at pircargos.com. They may be just what you're looking for. More information is in the vendors/merchants section.

 

[GHT]

Ha, well.... it's unusual, but accepted, in legal academia (I've known two Scottish academics who rarely wear trousers at all). I'm giving it a go at gradation myself this year. outside of black tie events, probably not the best first choice in a more formal legal practice, though. Highly recommended round the house, mind, especially in Summer.

Years ago I knew a Scottish attorney, met him at the dance school we used to go to. Whenever we had a black tie event, he wore his kilt. I can still remember a sea of female faces looking on, hoping the kilt would rise as he twirled his lady round the floor.