J.Crew
J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dresses, suiting, jewelry, and shoes.
Company type
1947 (as Popular Merchandise, Inc.)
1983 (as J.Crew)
Mitchell Cinader
Saul Charles
506 (2018)
Libby Wadle
(CEO)
Clothing, shoes, and accessories
US$−78.8 million (2019)[1]
US$1.599 billion (2019)[1]
US$−1.35 billion (2019)[1]
9,400 (2019)[1]
J.Crew
crewcuts
The Liquor Store (defunct)
The Ludlow Shop
J.Crew Factory
J.Crew Mercantile
Madewell
As of August 2016, it operated more than 450 retail stores throughout the United States.[4] The company conducts its business through retail, factory, crew cuts, Madewell stores, catalogs, and online.[5]
On May 4, 2020, the company announced that it would apply for bankruptcy protection amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
History[edit]
Formation and catalog growth[edit]
In 1947, Mitchell Cinader and Saul Charles founded Popular Merchandise, Inc., a store that did business as Popular Club Plan and sold low-priced women's clothing marketed through in-home demonstrations.[6] Throughout the mid-1980s, sales from catalog operations grew rapidly. "Growth was explosive—25 to 30 percent a year," Cinader later recollected in The New York Times. Annual sales grew from $3 million to more than $100 million over five years.[6] In 1985, the "Clifford & Wills" brand was launched, selling women's clothing that was more affordable than the Popular Merchandise line.[7] In 1987, two executives left the company to start their own catalog, Tweeds.[8]
The 1980s marked a booming sales period for catalog retail giants Lands' End, Talbots, and L. L. Bean. Popular Merchandise initiated its own catalog operation, focusing on leisurewear for upper-middle-class customers, aiming for a Ralph Lauren look at a much lower price. The first Popular Club Plan catalog was mailed to customers in January 1983 and continued under that name until 1989. Popular Club Plan catalogs often showed the same garment in more than one picture with close-up shots of the fabrics, so customers could get a sense of how the garment looked on the body and be assured of the company's claims of quality.[9]
Name change and first stores[edit]
In 1983, Popular Merchandise, Inc. became known as J.Crew, Inc. The company attempted, but failed to sell the Popular Club Plan brand.[6] Also in 1989, J.Crew opened its first retail store, in South Street Seaport in downtown Manhattan.[10]
J.Crew Group was owned by the Cinader family for most of its existence, but in October 1997 investment firm Texas Pacific Group Inc. purchased a majority stake. By the year 2000, Texas Pacific held an approximate 62 percent stake, a group of J.Crew managers held about 10 percent, and Emily Cinader Woods, the chairman of J.Crew, along with her father, Arthur Cinader, held most of the remainder.[11] The brand Clifford & Wills was sold to Spiegel. in 2000 with the intent to boost sales.[7] In 2004, J.Crew bought the rights to the brand Madewell, a defunct workwear manufacturer founded in 1937, and used the name from 2006 onwards as "a modern-day interpretation", targeted at younger women than their main brand.[12][13][14]
Marketing[edit]
Historically, each year the company issued 24 editions of the J.Crew catalog, distributing more than 80 million copies. Beginning in 2017, the catalog began being released with fewer pages and fewer issues per year.[55]
J.Crew has been criticized for labeling its new super-small jeans as "size 000".,[56] and for advertising them as "toothpick jeans". Critics have said the labeling promotes vanity, a practice known as vanity sizing.[57] The "size 000" is smaller than a size zero and has three zeros, implying that it is two sizes smaller than the smallest normal size. This has caused people to question whether negative sizes will be available in the future,[58] and if the method of labeling should be changed.
In early 2011, J.Crew was under fire by conservative media outlets for an advertisement featuring its creative director and president, Jenna Lyons, painting her son's toenails pink. Beneath the picture was a quote that read, "Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink."[59] Some people were of the opinion that J.Crew was challenging traditional gender identity roles, although author Jo B. Paoletti said that it was "no big deal".[60]