What Does it Mean When a Brand Is "Back?"

It's marketing, babe.

C/O J.Crew

When J.Crew came to my hometown it was a big deal. Before long, our school's Abercrombie & Fitch-laden halls gave way to their lighter, breathier, and more classic clothes. For many, this was the true heyday of the brand — well before the more fashion-forward Jenna Lyons years. It was the golden age of the J.Crew catalog, one that would be immortalized in the 2020s through Instagram, Pinterest, and a longing for “the old” J.Crew. 

But the old J.Crew is the “new” J.Crew. A sentiment often boiled down to the phrase “J.Crew is back,” which has been muttered by editors and influencers (self-included) for a few seasons. There’s the revived catalog, a swath of collaborations (perhaps too many, if I’m being honest) and a recognizable and cozy VHS aesthetic. With an almost unanimous lauding from tastemakers, it’s hard to deny that J.Crew is reclaiming its old glory. An outcome of some thoughtful design and creative direction (Olympia Gayot for Women’s, Brendon Babanzien for Men’s.)

The mystique works on me. I’m under their spell and find most of what I see to feel just right. It helps, too, that a lot of people whose taste I admire think the same. But in 2024, where most touchpoints with a brand are through a tiny screen, what does being “back” even mean?

C/O J.Crew

The other day, in the

Magasin

chat, somebody threw it out there that they feel the current conversation around the brand is “very forced,” saying the brand is “fast fashion disguised as middle-class royalty, but ‘they’re back’ because they have good art direction and content?” 

It’s a good provocation. The short answer is…well, yes. When people say it’s back, they’re really meaning that it’s looking good when they see it (presumably through the screen). And if it’s not objectively good, then it’s at least better than it was (which was objectively bad).

This kind of rebuild is a slow process, but it's bedrock. In marketing science, they call it the “upper funnel” a realm of content designed to fascinate and educate rather than to get you to transact. (In contrast, lower funnel marketing is often product-specific and is intended to get you to purchase.) So when somebody says J.Crew is back, that’s what they’re talking about — the J.Crew world, the nostalgic one so many of us have been pining for, complete with a Bessette-Kennedy patina.

If shopping was just about the exchange of legal tender for goods, a brand being “back” would be a different conversation based on quality and product design. But none of the chatter that I’ve seen touches on the clothes themselves. It’s about the shiny world they’ve masterfully created — nostalgic and new all at once. The “middle-class royalty” aesthetic the original commenter mentioned is the thing. 

After securing a digital version of the catalog (thank you,

Max Berlinger

), I took myself to the newish J.Crew store in SoHo, hoping to dip into the nostalgia I’ve seen on Instagram and elsewhere and see what some of the

Magasin

commenters were discussing. 

The store wasn’t quite the extension I’d hoped for — it almost felt sterile, perhaps taking some 90s cues that should stay in the past. And in the men’s section, everything felt like an afterthought — wrinkled and unenticing. This store is meant to be a womens-focused location, but few customers shopping in touristy Soho would make that distinction. Nothing was like the dreamy editorials in the catalog (which I couldn’t find). Merchants may feel the customer isn’t ready for all of that, which is fair, but as the brand image continues to take hold, can that disconnect be sustained? Should it be? 

As for the clothing, it’s a slice of what we see in the marketing, of course. It’s classic with flashes of ingenuity (giant chinos, etc) and it’s clear the merchants are running the show in the stores. And sometimes that works, Quality-wise it would be silly to say they haven’t wavered in the past but it’s never been heirloom-level. It’s fine…about the same as you’d expect from any high street or mall brand (a step up from “fast-fashion”). If the quality was ever superior, it was certainly over 20 years ago, which is a comically long time in fashion and a world away from where we are with supply chain, inflation, and economic factors.

In the end though, all of this is meaningless unless it proves out in revenue. Every business in America ladders up to a spreadsheet somewhere that has no care of creative direction, editorial darlings, or branding. So time will tell.