Everyone Wears J. Crew

From the clothes we wear to the ways we wear them, how a single brand came to epitomize how the American man dresses now


Men — a lot of men, most men — don't always know their suit doesn't fit correctly until they try on a well-tailored suit that does. It doesn't always occur to most men that the sleeves of their button-down shirt are billowy until someone hands them a shirt with the sleeves cut slimmer, so you can actually make out the arms inside. They could go half their career wearing blazers with straight sides — the line from the armpit to the hip — until someone pinches in the fabric at the back, revealing that blazers look better when made with perhaps 7 percent less material, for snugness around the middle. Only when he sees these garments, feels them wrap and hug the contours of his body and his alone, will a man be convinced, because men require proof. So you can tell a man that, for example, his blazers are too boxy, and he might not even doubt you, but he won't do anything about it, and he won't understand that he might feel better, walk taller, in a blazer that really fits him until you pinch that fabric at the back. Until you show him. It's like the difference between explaining the benefits of countersinking a screw into a piece of wood and grabbing a drill to demonstrate it.

Oh. That's what you mean.

And once he is convinced, he is convinced for life.

Five years ago, J. Crew, a clothing company that at the time was not known as a brand for men, that at the time was not known for much of anything in particular besides its catalogs full of toothy models wearing preppy clothing available in cleverly named colors like "bright flame," decided to try something new in the $400 billion world of men's clothing. It would design and produce a few essential pieces that every man should own — the best suit, the best shirt, the best pants, the best jeans — which would look cleaner and feel better than what men had come to expect from most stores and brands. The cuts would be slimmer. The notches on the lapels would be tighter, and the lapels themselves would be narrower. The spread of the shirt collar — the distance between its two points — would be exactly right, whatever that meant. (They would know it when they saw it.)

So that was the first thing: Make clothes that fit.

And then, once they did that, they would surround their own creations with a handful of shoes, shirts, watches, and other accessories made by iconic companies. Why try to reinvent the men's dress shoe if Alden already makes some of the best on earth? Why not enlist one of the world's great shirtmakers, Thomas Mason, to help design the world's greatest shirt? J. Crew, an independent company whose clothes were not available in any department store, would itself create a sort of miniature department store for men only.

That was the second thing: Show men how to wear clothes. Give them options. Make suggestions. Encourage.

And that was J. Crew's plan, five or so years ago, and it was a good plan except for the huge risk. The huge risk was that men wouldn't notice. That they would keep wearing slightly ill-fitting clothes that weren't quite ill-fitting enough that men would feel impelled to make a change. That men just don't really care.

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