
J. Crew's Biggest Problem Isn't Clothing. It's Greed - n1676290
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-07/mickey-drexler-isn-t-j-crew-s-biggest-problem-greed-is
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usmeteora
hmm a working women in Tech who has been shopping/or checking it out, and
sometimes buying things from Jcrew for 7ish years. Here are some notes

1\. The biggest decline in Jcrew is regardless, regardless of their struggle
related to styling, all the styles have gone down in quality of production.

Things just aren't tailored as well. The best thing about Jcrew, regardless of
what your "Jcrew style" was, is that it was tailored well, and this matters
alot for professional working women, skin tight pants, or pants that dip too
low when you sit down, button downs too tight at the bust, all of these
relatively minor things add up to you losing all the focus at your
presentation or meeting because whether men are trying to be or not, if they
can see through your shirt, or your underwear is showing, its a distraction.

jcrew was a go to place for high quality work clothes well tailored and
classy. You obviously looked better being thin, but you did not need to be
model thin to look good in the clothes and look professional and classy.

That has gone downhill and the quality of their materials and sewing has just
gone down.

2\. A few years back, Jcrew tried an edgier tomboy/working women look that was
still sophisticated and classy, slightly leaning androgenous but still you had
colors to choose from and it was a way to be tomboyish without wearing black
to prove your "different".

They also tried some European influence and I liked all of it alot as a female
in tech, and dressing down and androdgenously is comfortable for me. It turned
out not to be popular at all.

3\. So here is what JCrew did...they said "ok we can't do the edgy thing" and
openly came out with a statement saying they were going back to the classics.

here is what they meant: they went back to housewife classics.

The dresses are for moms on vacation. It's the "sophisticated stay at home
mom" look but unfortunately the women buying their clothes are mostly working
women, and continually working women who are younger and more progrssive, so
the whole "sundress to work" kind of thing was not working out.

They moved their work wear back to 1980's power women workwear, and the rest
of the clothing to housewife clothing.

Turns out most working younger women late 20s/early 30's are neither
housewives and they reject the queen B power women on wallstreet status style
clothing.

JCrew fell flat, got scared in their new explorations and reverted back to the
safest and most original lines they had, except this time they were lower
quality.

~~~
mc32
It seems Anne Klein agrees with you[1]. Their new creative director has stated
they want to be the go to brand for professional (women).

What I don't get in fashion, women's as well as men's, but more notably in
women's is the focus on trends/fashion (at the expense of quality and rigor)
rather than style + quality. I.e the product looks great from afar, but up
close it's shabby construction and poor materials (in many cases).

[1][https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/at-anne-
klein...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/at-anne-klein-a-
quest-for-the-right-fit-of-fashion-forward-and-the-
familiar/2017/05/26/5b59224c-1f9d-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html)

~~~
usmeteora
Yeh, well thats the problem with Jcrew now, their stuff used to last forever,
and it was high quality and was edgy but had more traditional feels.

A good pair of Levis used to be made well too for girls, now everything is
this new stretchy material and it's hard to find real denim anymore.

Alot of clothes are made cheaply for high trends and makeup does the same
thing.

I don't do makeup and only invest in few high quality clothing and solid
colours.

I actually have a really minimal closet, with fewer high quality things and I
invest in just a few designers, and wear mostly nice white tshirts with jeans,
and sometimes splurge on nice shoes as a girl. If you have a few pair of
really nice jeans, and really high quality solid/button down shirts in black
white/ 2-3 other colours that complement your eyes/hair/skintone then it's
really easy to get dressed in the morning, saves time and I can wear the same
thing at night (I don't really go out outside of work, but hypothetically if I
did) I could change from flats or tennis shoes which I wear to work, to kitten
heels and look like I'm ready for a date.

I'm not into being robbed by clothes and makeup just because I'm a girl. when
I was broke in college buying cheap clothes got me by but I was not keeping up
with trends.

Now I shop for a few high quality things, and Jcrew used to be a place I could
do that.

For high quality minimalist girls clothing I recommend Emerson fry who used to
have more tomboy stuff

and

Everlane: [https://www.everlane.com/](https://www.everlane.com/)

I streamline my clothing. I don't make impulse buys, I buy nice jeans.

And anyways most girls who have trendy clothing end up wearing the one thing
they like over and over again, so why not make sure everything you buy is that
one thing you can wear multiple times.

Overall, I would say its not a conscious decision to be trendy but girls have
to learn/decondition themselves to this underhanded sexism pressuring girls to
feel like they need to buy clothes 600% as much just to not look frumpy.

