Steven Alan takes on khaki for Dockers

If ever there was a designer who was well suited to answer the current men's wear call for the perfect pair of khaki pants, it would be Steven Alan. A decade ago, Alan expanded his retail and fashion-showroom businesses with a collection of signature men's shirts that created an ideal ratio of fitted-ness to slouchy-ness, without any room for sloppiness.

Now he has been tapped to develop a collection of khakis and sportswear for Dockers, which will arrive at Barneys New York and Steven Alan Annex stores in October. Dockers, you may recall, is not a fashion-forward brand. It is better known as a go-to resource for Casual Fridays, which makes the collaboration with Alan unusually intriguing, much the same as when Michael Bastian got his hands on Gant.

"In my mind, I thought about how I see Dockers and my memories of them while growing up," Alan said. "I have a 1970s math professor in mind."

Ouch. Alan actually described his khaki design approach as "sort of eliminating the doofy-ness," which is probably not something that the Dockers marketing team will be repeating in an advertising campaign.

But the new rage for khakis in designer fashion calls for pants that don't droop in the rear, nor billow at the thighs, nor fall short of the ankle by more than precisely one inch (unless, of course, they are artfully rolled and worn without socks). And Dockers has been trying to freshen its image in the face of an increasingly competitive pants market.

"The stars in the universe are definitely aligning," said Steve Evans , a Dockers senior vice president. "If we see a khaki wave coming, we should be on the front of it."

Alan, who also designs collections for Urban Outfitters and a line sold in Japan called Blacker, created three styles of khakis ($128) for Dockers, including a slim cut, in addition to some narrowly collared poplin shirts ($148), military jackets ($248) and neat ties ($48) in tartan or fine-wale cord that can be buttoned to the shirt as if they had a built-in tie tack. Alan said he is eager to get his hands on his own designs.

"Recently, I've started wearing modified khakis," he said. "But I've been tailoring them because, in general, they're a little too roomy for me."