Perhaps J. Crew might have accurately reflected America's heritage after all
Back when we still had a wide variety of Democrat politicians running for president, a friend of mine theorized why Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg were getting media coverage that seemed disproportionate to their years in public service: "The majority of political writers are middle-aged white dudes like these guys, and they're projecting themselves into the coverage. These guys are the surrogates for their sense of achievement."
Reading through the slew of "J. Crew declares bankruptcy!" coverage today, I am wondering if something similar applies to retail and fashion reporters. I'm certainly not not-guilty of it -- both the previous So What, Who Cares newsletters I've sent out lay out my personal connection to the brand as justification for why it's worth paying attention to:
"I remember the first J. Crew catalog I got as a teenager, because a short-haired Linda Evangelista was wearing the clothing and her cool presentation made otherwise stodgy Bush I-era prep look a lot more stylish than it actually was." -- June 7, 2017
Or:
"I pulled the trigger on buying a J. Crew barn jacket in 1991 after reading the catalog copy enthusing about the jacket's ubiquity from New England to the Santa Fe Opera." -- June 5, 2019
But does some khaki purveyor falling on hard times really merit this much scrutiny? The J. Crew bankruptcy is not retail's first big bankruptcy: The Limited, Forever21, Payless Shoe Source and Claire's have all gone under in the past few years, and those brands have probably penetrated as many closets -- if not more -- than J. Crew's did. The difference is that those three aren't brands that project aspiration; they were just chains that provided low-cost, trend-conscious staples. It was okay if another brand invented the trend; there was honor in making that trend accessible to price-conscious consumers.
What's been interesting to watch is how American brands have not been able to make "heritage" stick as a branding technique in the 2000s. Remember L.L. Bean Signature? How about Lands End Heritage? Levis has been through a dozen fashion-y revivals and it's staking its latest growth strategy on fashion-snob appeal and opening 100 brick-and-mortar stores … in a year when we're all staying at home. Timberlands, Red Wing, Filson's, Patagonia, North Face … there have been a lot of brands trying to remind shoppers that they're tried-and-true "heritage" brands.
The sticky underside to the heritage gambit is when the very notion of what comprises a national heritage is up for debate. Although the New York Times' Vanessa Friedman pinned J. Crew's woes on a sort of stylistic incoherence -- "a loss of aesthetic identity; an inability to give urgent, desirable expression to who we are now" -- the problems began for them a few years ago when the nostalgic premise of "heritage" in America became a political flashpoint.
Outdoorsy or work-facing brands might have it easier --vague ideas like "Outdoorsy!" and "Hard working!" are often able to skirt by any polarizing connotations. I, too, can be the type of person who kayaks/ builds things myself/ cheers for a child playing Pop Warner on a Saturday morning, and I drink coffee from a stainless-steel vacuum thermos! Truly, I'm perched atop Maslow's hierarchy of needs at self-actualization!
The retail media corps seems shaken by the J. Crew bankruptcy in a way that they weren't by other stores going under. Perhaps J. Crew the brand was a stand-in for being able to master the tricky high-low "balance" of modern U.S. culture -- but J. Crew the company turned out to be a business that was persistently unable to comprehend the currents of American culture, much less adapt to them, and thus failed in the modern U.S. economy. As goes the aspirational avatar, so go we all.
FURTHER READING
"The Gap, America's Most Iconic Retailer, Could Actually Die" (Medium, April 29, 2020) -- "It’s certainly a brand with an enviable heritage. Founded in 1969 as a single store selling Levi’s and albums, it became synonymous with denim as a youth signifier (its name referenced the “generation gap”), eventually opting to build and exclusively sell its own brand."
"Do 'Accessible Luxury' Brands Have an Inherently Limited Lifespan?" (The Business of Fashion, August 11, 2015) -- “The key to success is understanding what the consumer is willing to invest in and how much it’s worth to them. People don’t invest in products; they invest in things that fulfill their emotional needs.”
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