As part of VF Corp.’s cost-cutting and restructuring efforts, Dickies, a workwear firm that owns Vans and a number of other well-known lifestyle brands, is transferring its headquarters from Texas to Costa Mesa.
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As part of the plan announced Nov. 22, Dickies will share headquarters space with Vans at its Costa Mesa hub just off the 405 Freeway at 1588 South Coast Drive. “VF spokeswoman Ashley McCormack wrote that the combined companies hope to create a campus where creativity and best practice sharing can thrive through great collaboration and connections.”
According to McCormack, the move of Dickies, which VF purchased for $820 million in October 2017, will impact 120 employment in Texas.
Questions on how many employees might be hired in Costa Mesa were not answered by the company.
According to McCormack, Dickies, which was established in 1922 in Forth Worth, should be finished moving by May 2025.
The relocation to California coincides with other significant moves to Texas.
Though they ve left sizeable footprints behind, big-name corporations moving headquarters out of California in recent years included oil company Chevron to Houston from San Ramon, and Elon Musk moving Tesla s base to Austin from Palo Alto. Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard, database management firm Oracle, and commercial real estate brokerage CBRE have also left California.
The Dickies relocation to Orange County coincides with VF’s struggles to implement a turnaround strategy in the face of diminishing sales across all of its brands.
The Dickies workwear brand has evolved over the last century from a low-budget, bib-overall manufacturer with a line of affordable safety footwear, work trousers and jeans, to a hipster s must-have clothing for skating or going out on the town.
VF CEO Bracken Darrell forewarned of impending cost-cutting as the business prepared to resume growth at an investor day event in Denver on October 30.
On Nov. 13, S&P Global downgraded VF s credit rating to junk status because of ongoing revenue declines in its top four brands: Dickies, The North Face, Timberland and Vans.
In its second fiscal quarter ending Sept. 28, Dickies saw revenue fall 11% to $152 million from $171 million in the same year-earlier period. The revenue drop was among the largest in VF s portfolio.
In the same quarter, Vans saw revenue fall 11% to $667 million, The North Face fall 3% to $1.09 billion, and Timberland fall 3% to $475 million.
In October, VF named Chris Goble as global brand president for Dickies. Goble, formerly chief product officer and general manager of Gap North America, replaced Todd Dalhausser, who had previously moved to the outdoor brand The North Face.
Goble, who could not be reached for comment, also held previous posts with clothing brands Old Navy and Levi Strauss & Co, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In a matter related to the restructuring, business unit VF Outdoor LLC issued a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, also called a WARN notice, indicating plans on Nov. 15 to close a distribution center in Martinsville, Virginia. The closure is expected to affect 242 employees by Jan. 19, according to WARN filing with the Virginia Employment Commission.
A WARN notice related to the 120 affected jobs with Dickies in Texas could not be found with the Texas Workforce Commission.
VF shares rose 66 cents, or 3.5%, to close Monday at $20.43.
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