J Crew, Brooks Brothers and the decline of American prep style

Brands’ struggles mark the end of an era in US fashion

Lauren Indvik
 Financial Times, MAY 14 2020\

The classic 1960s college look © H. Armstrong Roberts/Classic Stock/Getty Images

The classic 1960s college look © H. Armstrong Roberts/Classic
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4, J Crew, the 73-year-old retailer whose fashion-forward take on
prep captured the American style zeitgeist in the mid-2000s, filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Virginia, becoming the first significant
fashion casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic. Brooks Brothers, another
institution of New England prep style, has hired financial advisers to
explore its options. It is $600m in debt.

Such a state of affairs would have been difficult to imagine when I

enrolled in a small liberal arts university in New Hampshire 15 years
ago, where students lounged on the green lawns of their fraternity
houses in J Crew madras shorts and popped the collars of their
Lacoste polos only semi-ironically.

Or when I lived, briefly, in Washington DC, in 2009. The city was a J

Crew catalogue in motion — you could hardly turn a corner without
seeing the brand’s No 2 pencil skirt, “Bubble” necklace or elasticated
leather ballet flats. Brooks Brothers, though considered a bit old-
fashion, remained a dependable supplier of suits and shirts to young
graduates embarking on careers at investment banks or on Capitol
Hill.

That J Crew was struggling prior to the pandemic was no secret. After
a spectacular turnround from 2003 to 2015 under former Gap chief
executive Mickey Drexler and longtime J Crew designer Jenna Lyons,
the company’s sales had slumped, leading to a succession of
management changes and making it difficult to pay off the $1.7bn in
debt it had acquired in a 2011 private-equity buyout. The J Crew
Group had been planning a March initial public offering for
Madewell, the younger, smaller and better-performing sister brand of
J Crew, to pay off a debt maturity due next year. When the pandemic
hit, those plans were scrapped.
For a brief period, J Crew defined the spirit of American fashion. The
brand’s jewel-toned cashmere sweaters, cheap-but-chic statement
necklaces and slim chinos were just the thing for young and mid-
career office workers who were adapting to an increasingly casual
workplace and wanted to build a professional wardrobe that wasn’t
black, beige and boring. It was preppy yet democratic, functional but
also fashion-forward; it was worn by lawyers and students, endorsed
by Vogue and first lady Michelle Obama.

Creative director Lyons became a style celebrity, the brand an

imitation of her eclectic way of dressing: ripped white jeans with a
black stiletto, a sequinned blazer with a crisp white shirt and cargo
pants. Nearly all of it was available online or at a local mall for $200
or less.

In 2015, J Crew’s decade-long sales climb took a sudden turn. On a

call with investors, Drexler blamed specific style misses such as the
ill-fitting “Tilly” jumper, but vocal J Crew loyalists accused the brand
of lowering its quality standards and pandering too much to a fashion
customer.

Abra Belke, a former Washington lobbyist who runs the influential

Capitol Hill Style blog, was one of those loyalists. “When I started the
blog in 2008, 70 per cent of my wardrobe was J Crew. That was true
of most female Hill staff at the time,” she recalls. “It was a place
where you could find business suits and cardigans, pieces that were
still cute but appropriate for work.”

By 2011, she noticed the quality was starting to slip. “I’d spend $80
or $90 on a sweater and it would pill the second time I wore it. The
linings were cheap fabrics that would pucker. It was the first time I
would order clothing and think, ‘This isn’t worth what I paid for it.’”
By 2014, she was getting so many complaints from readers about
poor fabrics and weak seams that she largely stopped featuring the
brand on the blog.

Belke thought J Crew was losing track of its customer. There was too
much neon; sequins were splashed on everything. “I remember on the
main page of the suiting section, there was a model wearing a pencil
skirt and a suit jacket and a sparkly top underneath a baseball T-shirt.
And I was like, that’s not a look for the office, it’s just not,” she says.
“[J Crew] tried to sit at the cool girl table and it didn’t work out.”

In 2017, J Crew parted ways with Lyons and men’s designer Frank
Muytjens, and Drexler stepped down as CEO (he stayed on as
chairman until 2019). The assortment became more basic, and boring;
fewer new designs were introduced. “I still pop in the store now and
then, try on a dress, and it’s literally the same exact cut [as years
ago],” says Alina Damas, a 22-year-old student at Harvard. “It’s the
same with shoes. You can’t keep selling the same flats in different
[shades] of cognac and think people won’t realise.”

If J Crew’s makeover had gone a few sequins too far, Brooks

Brothers’ has been too late in coming. The brand that has dressed
presidents from John F Kennedy to Donald Trump has laid claim to
many “firsts” in its 202-year history: the first ready-made suit (1849),
foulard tie (1890), madras print (1902), wash-and-wear shirt (1953).

But the innovations have dried up. Under chief executive Claudio Del
Vecchio, billionaire son of eyewear maker Luxottica’s founder, who
acquired the brand from Marks and Spencer in 2001, the clothes and
stores have become old-fashioned, and its customer aged. The edgier
customer it brought in via Thom Browne’s Black Fleece line in 2007
departed when Browne did, in 2015. By the time Del Vecchio got
around to hiring designer Zac Posen to refresh its women’s line in
2014, demand for dressy workwear was fading. The customer had
also moved online.

Today, in Washington, “the whole city is wearing Everlane”, says

Belke. “That’s the look now — not quite hipster, but certainly more
modern than the preppy American sportswear look for five, six years
there.” The direct-to-consumer brand’s cashmere crewneck jumpers,
wide-leg crops and ballet flats are the new women’s uniform on
Capitol Hill. It’s not just its aesthetics that resonate; its values around
transparency and sustainability do, too.

Neither J Crew nor Brooks Brothers is likely to disappear. The former

filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will allow it to restructure
(rather than Chapter 7, which would have meant liquidation). But on
the other side — of bankruptcy, of the pandemic — will America
want what these two brands have to offer?

Certainly their current strategy — a return to core styles marketed via

nostalgia — won’t be the ticket. Too many other brands do navy
blazers and Oxford shirts, and for a lower price. And if they want to
court a younger customer, they’ll need to stop peddling the same
images of American aristocracy they did 30 years ago. The pictures
that populate their Instagram feeds — of smiling blondes strolling
through ivy-clad colleges or gazing at the horizon from sailing yachts
— feel white, privileged and out of touch.

“I think there is a backlash against things that are associated with the
1 per cent among younger people, and that kind of classic, Hamptons,
Montauk, striped tee, white jeans, cashmere cardigan look which is
associated with a kind of income price point,” says Belke.

“For the younger generation, prep style is associated with a very

conservative view of the world . . . it’s not something that speaks at all
to their values,” says Neil Saunders, managing director and retail
analyst at GlobalData Retail. It hasn’t helped that beige chinos, like
“Make America Great Again” hats, have become part of the Trump
supporter uniform. “Prep is very conformist, and it’s also about
exclusivity — I’m a member of the club and you’re not.”

Teens today prize individual style, comfort and sustainability. They

care more about political and social issues than previous generations,
and gravitate towards brands that they feel share their values. In a
twice yearly survey of US teens’ spending habits, investment bank
Piper Sandler (formerly known as Piper Jaffray) noted that the likes of
Ralph Lauren, Sperry and Vineyard Vines have been steadily ceding
market share to athletic brands such as Nike and Lululemon. Nike’s
2018 campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who
famously protested racial inequality by refusing to stand during the
national anthem, was a huge hit.

It’s unlikely that Brooks Brothers or J Crew will be able to dictate

mass tastes the way they once did. Mainstream styles circulate much
more quickly than in earlier decades; clothes are cheaper and more
quickly disposed of, and there is no longer one predominant style. On
a broader level, fashion has become more casual and sportier —
today, Canada Goose parkas and leggings are the dominant campus
uniform.

“I think streetwear has completely taken the role that the preppy
brands used to have,” says Arman Badrei, a 20-year-old student at
Princeton. Brands including Supreme, Fear of God and Moncler have
become more of a status symbol than the “classic gentleman” look
made popular by J Crew and Brooks Brothers, he says.

Yet there remains something very compelling about that classic look.
Recently, I flipped through a copy of Take Ivy, Japan’s 1965 ode to
the dress and manners of students at elite New England universities.
To my eye, the sturdy wool jumpers, tailored chinos and loafers look
as good now as they must have 55 years ago. In contrast to today’s
styles, they are classic, well made and well fitted. Besides the
ubiquitous varsity jacket, there is very little that is oversized.

What purveyors of prep might need, then, is not so much a shift in

aesthetics — though some of that is needed — but a shift in values.
Increasingly conscious of the ills of fast fashion, consumers are
looking for what prep style has long offered: timeless, good-quality,
easily interchangeable clothes that can be worn for decades.

There is already some evidence that prep style is on the way back: the
men’s Spring/Summer 2020 catwalk collections were awash with
prep staples such as knitted polos, tassel loafers and pleated trousers
cut high on the waist.

“There is no question in my mind that preppy dressing is back,” says

Teo van den Broeke, style and grooming editor of British GQ.
“There’s something about the smarts-meets-sports easiness of preppy
dressing that feels ultra-relevant right now.”

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